William Shepherd


William McMichael "Bill" Shepherd is an American former Navy SEAL, aerospace, ocean, and mechanical engineer, and NASA astronaut who served as Commander of Expedition 1, the first crew on the International Space Station. He is also a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

Education and training

Shepherd was born on July 26, 1949 to George R. Shepherd and Barbara Shepherd in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but he considers Babylon, New York his hometown. He is married to Beth Stringham of Houston, Texas. He graduated from Arcadia High School in Phoenix, Arizona in 1967, and received a Bachelor of Science degree in aerospace engineering from the United States Naval Academy in 1971. He completed Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training in 1972, then joined the United States Naval Special Warfare Command and qualified as a Navy SEAL. He served with the Navy's Underwater Demolition Team ELEVEN, SEAL Teams ONE and TWO, and Special Boat Unit TWENTY. He obtained an Engineer's degree in Ocean Engineering and an MS in mechanical engineering in 1978 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

NASA career

After Shepherd was selected for NASA Astronaut Group 10 in 1984, rumors spread that he had killed a man with his bare hands as a SEAL. Shepherd denied this, stating that it "was with knives!". He was the first military non-aviator in astronaut training, following his unsuccessful application for NASA Astronaut Group 9 in 1980. In 1986, Shepherd's Navy SEAL training proved unexpectedly useful to NASA as he helped to direct the underwater salvage operations of the Space Shuttle Challenger after its destruction. Shepherd then served as a Mission Specialist on three Space Shuttle flights: mission STS-27 in 1988, mission STS-41 in 1990, which deployed the Ulysses probe, and mission STS-52 in 1992. He was the first member of NASA Astronaut Group 10 to fly a space mission.
From March 1993 to January 1996, he was assigned to the International Space Station Program, serving as Program Manager and Deputy Program Manager. In November 1995 he was selected to command the first crew of the International Space Station. The mission was supposed to launch in 1997, but a long series of political, financial, and technical problems caused significant delays. Although sixteen nations would participate in the ISS program, Russia, along with the United States would bear the majority of the station's costs.

Spaceflight experience

STS-41: Discovery during 66 orbits of the Earth, the crew aboard the Orbiter successfully deployed the Ulysses, starting it on a four-year journey to investigate the polar regions of the Sun.
STS-52: Columbia was the 10-day mission deployed the Laser Geodynamic Satellite, and conducted U.S. microgravity payload experiments.
ISS Expedition 1. From October 31, 2000 to March 21, 2001, he and Russian cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergey Krikalev launched from Baikonur on Soyuz TM 31 and served as Expedition 1, the first crew onboard ISS. The crew returned to Earth on the Space Shuttle Discovery, STS 102.
Shepherd has logged over 159 days in space.

Post-NASA career

Shepherd was next assigned to the staff of Commander, Naval Special Warfare Command, to assist with the development of new capabilities and programs for the Navy's SEAL and Special Boat units. He retired from the U.S. Navy in January 2002. Capt Shepherd also served as U.S. Special Operations Command's first Science Advisor from 2008–2011.

Organizations