William Shepherd

William McMichael "Bill" Shepherd (born July 26, 1949), (Capt, USN, Ret.), is an American former Navy SEAL, aerospace, ocean, and mechanical engineer, and NASA astronaut, who served as commander of Expedition 1, the first crew on the International Space Station. He is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. Education and training Shepherd was born on July 26, 1949, to George R. Shepherd and Barbara Shepherd in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but he considers Babylon, New York, his hometown. He is married to Beth Stringham of Batavia, New York. He graduated from Arcadia High School in Phoenix, Arizona in 1967, and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland in 1971. He completed Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL (BUD/S) training in 1972, then joined the United States Naval Special Warfare Command and qualified as a Navy SEAL. He served with the Navy's Underwater Demolition Team ELEVEN, SEAL Teams ONE and TWO, and Special Boat Unit TWENTY. He obtained an Engineer's degree in Ocean Engineering and a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering, both in 1978, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). NASA career After Shepherd was selected for NASA Astronaut Group 10 in 1984, rumors spread that he had answered a standard interview question about what he did best by saying, "kill people with knives" but he later refused to confirm or deny the account, commenting "it's too good a story". He was the first military non-aviator in astronaut training, following his unsuccessful application for NASA Astronaut Group 9 in 1980. In 1986, Shepherd's Navy SEAL training proved unexpectedly useful to NASA as he helped to direct the underwater salvage operations of the Space Shuttle Challenger after its destruction. Shepherd then served as a mission specialist on three Space Shuttle flights: mission STS-27 in 1988, mission STS-41 in 1990, which deployed the Ulysses probe, and mission STS-52 in 1992. He was the first member of NASA Astronaut Group 10 to fly a space mission.