Michael 'Rich' Clifford, who as a NASA astronaut flew on three space shuttle missions, including one after his diagnosis with Parkinson's Disease, has died at the age of 69.
in Houston, where he was serving as a space shuttle vehicle integration engineer at the time of his selection.
The week-long flight deployed the last major military payload flown on the shuttle, as well as conducted medical studies on the effects of microgravity on cells from bone tissue, muscles and blood. The astronauts also released three small metal spheres into space to test ground-based capabilities of detecting debris in low-Earth orbit and tested their own ability to observe ground-based phenomena from space as part of a military experiment.
, Clifford worked with his five STS-59 crewmates to operate the Space Radar Laboratory , a payload aimed at providing scientists with the data needed to distinguish human-induced environmental changes from other forms of natural change.NASA astronaut Rich Clifford, an Army Aviator and space shuttle mission specialist, is seen on board Atlantis' mid-deck, checking on his spacesuit, during the STS-76 mission in 1996.
It was after Clifford landed from STS-59 that he was first diagnosed with Parkinson's, a chronic nervous system disorder that primarily affects movement. As he revealed in a series of interviews years later, he first noticed that his right arm remained limp at his side rather than swinging as normal when he walked.