Ronald McNair was an MIT-trained physicist who joined NASA in 1984 and became the second African American to reach space. In 1986, he was one of the seven crew members killed when the Challenger exploded after liftoff.
McNair starred in baseball, basketball and football and played saxophone for the school band. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1967, earning a scholarship to attend North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.
Chemical and high-pressure lasers were two areas in which McNair was well regarded as an authority. He moved to Malibu, California, and started working at Hughes Research Laboratories.
He learned that NASA was looking for scientists to join the shuttle program while working as a staff physicist at Hughes Research Laboratories. McNair was one of 35 people chosen out of the 11,000 candidates in January 1978, and he finished his training and evaluation phase the following August.
With the launch of the STS-41B mission of the Space Shuttle Challenger on February 3, 1984, McNair became the second African American in space, just five months after Guion S. Bluford made history. As a mission specialist, McNair used the robotic arm of the Challenger to assist astronaut Bruce McCandless on his legendary untethered space walk. Prior to returning to the Kennedy Space Center on February 11, McNair spent 191 hours in space while Challenger completed 122 Earth orbits.
