Anna Fisher

PERSONAL DATA: Born August 24, 1949, in New York City, New York, but considers San Pedro, California, to be her hometown. Anna enjoys snow and water skiing, jogging, flying, scuba diving, reading, photography, and spending time with her daughters. Her mother, Mrs. Riley F. Tingle, formerly of San Pedro, now resides in Houston. Father, deceased, July 3, 1982.

EDUCATION: Graduated from San Pedro High School, San Pedro, California, in 1967; received a bachelor of science in Chemistry and a doctor of Medicine from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1971 and 1976, respectively; completed a 1-year internship at Harbor General Hospital in Torrance, California, in 1977; received a master of science in Chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1987.

SPECIAL HONORS: Awarded a National Science Foundation Undergraduate Research Fellowship in 1970, 1971. Graduated from UCLA cum laude and with honors in chemistry. Recipient of: NASA Space Flight Medal; Lloyd’s of London Silver Medal for Meritorious Salvage Operations; Mother of the Year Award 1984; UCLA Professional Achievement Award, UCLA Medical Professional Achievement Award. NASA Exceptional Service Medal, 1999.

EXPERIENCE: After graduating from UCLA in 1971, Dr. Fisher spent a year in graduate school in chemistry at UCLA working in the field of x-ray crystallographic studies of metallocarbonanes. She co-authored 3 publications relating to these studies for the Journal of Inorganic Chemistry. She began medical school at UCLA in 1972 and, following graduation in 1976, commenced a 1-year internship at Harbor General Hospital in Torrance, California. After completing that internship, she specialized in emergency medicine and worked in several hospitals in the Los Angeles area.

NASA EXPERIENCE: Dr. Fisher was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in January 1978. In August 1979, she completed a one-year training and evaluation period, making her eligible for assignment as a mission specialist on future Space Shuttle flight crews. Following the one-year basic training program Dr. Fisher’s early NASA assignments (pre-STS-1 through STS-4) included the following: Crew representative to support development and testing of the Remote Manipulator System (RMS); Crew representative to support development and testing of payload bay door contingency EVA procedures, the extra-small Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), and contingency on-orbit TPS repair hardware and procedures; Verification of flight software at the Shuttle Avionics Integration Laboratory (SAIL) — in that capacity she reviewed test requirements and procedures for ascent, on-orbit, and RMS software verification — and served as a crew evaluator for verification and development testing for STS-2, 3 and 4.

For STS-5 through STS-7 Dr. Fisher was assigned as a crew representative to support vehicle integrated testing and payload testing at KSC. In addition, Dr. Fisher supported each Orbital Flight Test (STS 1-4) launch and landing (at either a prime or backup site) as a physician in the rescue helicopters and provided both medical & operational inputs to the development of rescue procedures. Dr. Fisher was also an on-orbit CAPCOM for the STS-9 mission.

Dr. Fisher was a mission specialist on STS-51A, which launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on November 8, 1984. She was accompanied by Captain Frederick (Rick) Hauck (spacecraft commander), Captain David M. Walker (pilot), and fellow mission specialists, Dr. Joseph P. Allen, and Commander Dale H. Gardner. This was the second flight of the orbiter Discovery. During the mission the crew deployed two satellites, Canada’s Anik D-2 (Telesat H) and Hughes’ LEASAT-1 (Syncom IV-1), and operated the Radiation Monitoring Equipment (RME) device, and the 3M Company’s Diffusive Mixing of Organic Solutions (DMOS) experiment. In the first space salvage mission in history the crew also retrieved for return to earth the Palapa B-2 and Westar VI satellites. STS-51A completed 127 orbits of the Earth before landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on November 16, 1984. With the completion of her first flight, Dr. Fisher has logged a total of 192 hours in space.

Dr. Fisher was assigned as a mission specialist on STS-61H prior to the Challenger accident. Following the accident, she worked as the Deputy of the Mission Development Branch of the Astronaut Office, and as the astronaut office representative for Flight Data File issues. In that capacity she served as the crew representative on the Crew Procedures Change Board. Dr. Fisher served on the Astronaut Selection Board for the 1987 class of astronauts. Dr. Fisher also served in the Space Station Support Office where she worked part-time in the Space Station Operations Branch. She was the crew representative supporting space station development in the areas of training, operations concepts, and the health maintenance facility. From 1989-1995, Dr. Fisher was on a leave of absence from the Astronaut Office to raise her family, returning in January 1996.

From 1996-2002, Dr. Fisher was the Chief of the Space Station Branch during the early phase of building the International Space Station. In that capacity, she coordinated inputs to the operations of the ISS for the Astronaut Office working closely with all the international partners and supervising assigned astronauts and engineers. Dr. Fisher was a Management Astronaut in both the Capcom Branch working as an ISS capcom and the Exploration Branch working on display development for the Orion Vehicle.

Dr. Fisher retired on April 28, 2017 after 36 years and 9 months with NASA, making her one of the longest serving astronauts. She continues as a motivational speaker at Space Center Houston, the KSC Visitors’ Center, and for the US State Dept as a goodwill ambassador and encouraging young people to pursue careers in STEM fields.