For a period of about a decade, when Stephen K. Robinson flew into space, people paid attention.

His two flights during that time made more news than any other successful mission. His take-offs may have been the most-watched launches of those years. The first time a U.S. president watched a shuttle launch, it was to see Stephen Robinson head into space.

And that's to say nothing of the crowds he drew as lead guitarist of a rock and roll band.

Yet most Americans have no idea who he is.

So who is this Stephen K. Robinson?

A native of California, Robinson began working with NASA as a student intern while attending the University of California-Davis. After college, he joined NASA in 1979 as an engineer working in fluid dynamics. He began applying to become an astronaut in 1983, when he was rejected, as he would continue to be until 1995 when his perseverance paid off, and he was selected to the astronaut corps.

During his time as an astronaut, he flew on four space shuttle flights. His first flight carried several scientific payloads, including atmospheric science and astronomy equipment, and tested demonstration hardware for the soon-to-be-launched International Space Station. His second flight was much the same -- a combination of scientific research, including the deployment of free-flying experiment hardware, and technology demonstrations for other missions. On his third flight, Robinson performed a spacewalk, removing gap fillers from between the thermal protection tiles on the underside of the shuttle. On his final flight, he stayed inside the shuttle, and coordinated the efforts of spacewalking crewmates who were installing new components on the space station.

As a whole, fairly routine stuff for an astronaut during the latter part of the shuttle program, really. And the first and last flight probably really do fit into that "routine" category -- the average person was probably barely aware of them, if at all.

So what made the middle two different?

Taking them out of order, the second flight was watched for its historic significance, and for the fact that it was the first opportunity to watch a launch in years. The STS-114 launch of Discovery was the first Return-To-Flight mission following the loss of the space shuttle Columbia more than two years earlier in February 2003. After years of efforts to make the shuttle safer than ever, America watched with excitement and then baited breath as the shuttle returned to space, only to discover that more work needed to be done before a normal flight schedule could be resumed.

The first flight was newsworthy for one of the other astronauts flying on it, a name known to almost everyone, even if he hadn't flown in a while. In fact, Robinson had been only six years old the only previous time his crewmate had flown. That astronaut, of course, was John Glenn, who had become the first American to orbit Earth in 1962. Glenn made his second flight, aboard shuttle mission STS-95, 14 years ago this week. Glenn was an important part of the life sciences research conducted on the mission, allowing scientists to learn more about the correlation between the effects of spaceflight and aging.

At the Davidson Center for Space Exploration at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, you can see a Mercury spacecraft trainer used by Glenn to get ready for his first flight. You can imagine what it would be like for Glenn during those early preparations, with no idea that someday, he would get to fly with THE Stephen K. Robinson.

Contributing Author: David Hitt
Photo Credit: Jim Gerard