Пирс Джон Селлерс: Жизнь и полёты астронавта

British American astronaut (1955–2016)
the astronaut

Piers John Sellers (11 April 1955 – 23 December 2016) was a British American meteorologist, NASA astronaut and Director of the Earth Science Division at NASA/GSFC. He was a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions. Sellers attended Cranbrook School, Cranbrook, Kent, United Kingdom, until 1973, and achieved a bachelor's degree in ecological science from the University of Edinburgh in 1976. In 1981 he gained a doctorate in biometeorology from the University of Leeds. In 2011, Sellers retired from the NASA Astronaut Corps. Before joining the astronaut corps, Sellers worked at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on research into how the Earth's biosphere and atmosphere interact. This work involved climate system computer modelling and field work utilising aircraft, satellites and ground support input.

Sellers was born in Crowborough, Sussex, the second born of five boys for mother Lindsey. His education started at Tyttenhanger Lodge Pre preparatory School in Seaford, East Sussex, and Cranbrook School, Kent, from which he graduated in 1973 and where he was trained as a Royal Air Force cadet to pilot gliders and powered aircraft. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in ecological science from the University of Edinburgh and a doctorate in biometeorology from the University of Leeds. Sellers married Amanda Lomas, a nurse from Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, before they moved to the US. This marriage ended in divorce. Sellers appeared in the Leonardo DiCaprio produced documentary film Before the Flood. In January 2016, he revealed that he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. Sellers died 23 December 2016 at the age of 61.

Sellers and his wife left the UK in 1982, moving to the United States, where he began his NASA career as a research meteorologist at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Sellers began applying annually to become an astronaut in 1984, but his lack of US citizenship was a problem. In 1991 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in April 1996, Sellers reported to the NASA Johnson Space Center in August 1996. and then served as deputy director of sciences and exploration at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

STS 112 (7–18 October 2002) was an International Space Station assembly mission during which the crew conducted joint operations with the Expedition 5 in delivering and installing the S One Truss (the third piece of the station's 11 piece Integrated Truss Structure). To outfit and activate the new component, Sellers performed three spacewalks and logged a total of 19 hours and 41 minutes of EVA. The crew also transferred cargo between the two vehicles and used the shuttle's thruster jets during two manoeuvres to raise the station's orbit. STS 112 was the first shuttle mission to use a camera on the External Tank, providing a live view of the launch to flight controllers and NASA TV viewers. The mission was accomplished in 170 orbits, travelling 4.5 million miles in 10 days, 19 hours, and 58 minutes. STS 132 (14–26 May 2010) was an International Space Station assembly mission. The primary payload was the Russian Rassvet Mini Research Module along with an Integrated Cargo Carrier Vertical Light Deployable (ICC VLD). This was the final scheduled mission of Atlantis. Sellers took a four inch wood sample of Sir Isaac Newton's apple tree, a piece from the original tree that supposedly inspired Newton's theory of gravity, along with a picture of Newton. The wood is part of the collection of the Royal Society archives in London, and was returned after the flight. He also took an original watercolor portrait of Cranbrook School painted by Brenda Barratt.