It seems like almost yesterday that Southeast Missouri State University graduate Linda Godwin lifted off into space. She operated her first shuttle assignment in April 1991 as a mission specialist. The flight lasted nearly six days as the crew conducted a space walk to deploy equipment to detect gamma rays in the universe.
Godwin's second trip to space was in April 1994 in which she helped launch equipment to better observe the effects of carbon monoxide on earth's surface and atmosphere. Her third flight was in March 1996 and was the third docking mission to the Russian Space Station. Godwin's most recent space voyage was in late 2001. As a mission specialist she used the shuttle's robotic arm to install a logistics module onto the International Space Station. Over the length of her astronautic career Dr. Linda Godwin has logged nearly one thousand hours in space.
Linda Godwin was born in Cape Girardeau in 1952 and raised in rural Cape Girardeau County. She graduated from Jackson High School in 1970, Southeast Missouri State University in 1974, and earned her Ph.D in physics from the University of Missouri in Columbia. She then joined NASA and was chosen as a candidate for space flight in June of 1985. Six years later Dr. Linda Godwin took her maiden voyage on the space ship Atlantis.
It seems like Almost Yesterday.