Owen K. Garriott

Class of
1980
Owen K. Garriott

Owen K. Garriott

“The immeasurable pride felt by Enid in its native son is well documented in the ‘Lights On, Enid,’ night of August 20 when all Enid lit up so that Dr. Garriott could see his hometown as he passed over it in space.”
Phillips University Citation, 1973

Biography

Oklahoma native, Owen K. Garriott graduated from Enid High School and the University of Oklahoma before entering the Navy during the latter part of the Korean War. After earning advanced degrees at Stanford and Cambridge universities, he returned to Stanford as a professor of electronics and electromagnetic theory, where he also authored numerous papers and a book. He entered the National Aeronautics and Space Program in 1965, and as a scientist-astronaut, he participated in the second named Skylab mission from July 28 to September 25, 1973. Skylab-3 covered 858 revolutions of the earth, and traveled more than 24 million miles. The crew installed six replacement rate gyros for altitude control and repaired nine major experimental solar observations from above the earth’s atmosphere. Dr. Garriott later served as Director of Science and Applications for the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, before returning to the Astronaut Office to continue training for future flight in Space Shuttle missions. As a thank you gift to the Enid community, Dr. Garriott donated $300,000 in 1993 towards the building of an exciting hands-on arts and sciences museum Leonardo’s Discovery Warehouse.

Fun fact

As the scientist-astronaut aboard Skylab-3, Owen Garriott joined fellow crew members in logging 1,427 hours and 9 minutes each in space, setting a new world record for a single mission. Dr. Garriott spent an additional 13 hours and 43 minutes in three separate extravehicular activities outside the orbital workshop.

Oklahoma connections

Garriott was born and raised in Enid, Oklahoma.

Hometown

Enid

Profession

Astronaut

Presenter

Born

1930

Died

2019
No items found.
No items found.