COOL Astronaut Saves Solar WIng

In a story I was just reading, astronauts successfully unfurled a torn solar power wing at the international space station on Saturday after spacewalker Scott Parazynski cut loose a tangled clump of wires and patched everything up. His emergency surgery saved the solar energy panel, and the space station.

In the tense buildup to the spacewalk, one of the most difficult and dangerous ever attempted, NASA repeatedly warned that station construction would have to be halted if the wing could not be fixed. Congratulations to the astronauts and to NASA for saving this situation!

Therefore, for fixing the solar wing panel, and the space station, Scott Parazynski is our "cool" person of the week. Here is a brief excerpt from his bio, which can be read in its' entirety at the link below.


Born July 28, 1961, in Little Rock, Arkansas. Considers Palo Alto, California, and Evergreen, Colorado, to be his hometowns. Married to the former Gail Marie Vozzella. They have two children. He enjoys mountaineering, rock climbing, flying, SCUBA diving, skiing, travel, woodworking, and nature photography. A commercial, multi-engine, seaplane and instrument-rated pilot, Dr. Parazynski has logged over 2000 flight hours in a variety of aircraft. As a mountaineer, his summits include Cerro Aconcagua (at 22,841 feet above sea level, the tallest mountain in the world outside of Asia) and 53 of Colorado’s peaks over 14,000 feet in altitude.


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