Portrait of John Casper Courtesy of NASA

John Casper is an American astronaut who was born on July 9, 1943 in Georgia. Before he was an astronaut, Casper was an Air Force fighter pilot in the Vietnam war. He has logged over 7000 hours of flight time in 51 types of aircraft.

Casper became an astronaut in 1985. He has spent over 825 hours in space on four spaceflights.

In 1990, Casper made his first spaceflight aboard STS-36. This was a Department of Defense mission. He flew aboard space shuttle Endeavour in 1993. The crew deployed the Tracking and Data Relay satellite during this mission.

Casper made his third spaceflight aboard STS-62 in 1994. The crew performed experiments in chemistry and space manufacturing. He made his last flight in 1996 aboard STS-77. The crew made several rendezvous sequences with four different satellites.