A career in veterinary medicine takes you beyond the examination table; in fact, it can take you out of this world! Dr. Richard Linnehan knows first hand.  As a mission specialist on board the Space Shuttle Columbia, he's traveled around the Earth a total of 692 times! He's spent 43 days in space and gone on three space walks! Dr. Linnehan describes the experience as "surreal." Dr. Linnehan adds "I always tell people that my veterinary education and training prepared me in a way that few other professional life sciences degree programs could have. A veterinarian has to know the biology, natural history, and veterinary medical aspects of many varied species, not just one."

 

In school, the sciences and mathmatics caught his attention. "I had always been interested in biology and the life forms that surrounded us, but were not us, so many different types of life. I remember helping an equine veterinarian with surgery when I was in junior high school. That pretty much hooked me." Dr. Linnehan graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a B.S. in Animal Science in 1980. He received his D.V.M. from The Ohio State University in 1985. Next, Dr. Linnehan spent two years in private practice before the Baltimore Zoo and Johns Hopkins University offered him a two-year internship. Following his internship in zoo animal medicine and comparative pathology, the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps commissioned Dr. Linnehan as a Captain. Captain Linnehan reported for duty in 1989 at the Naval Ocean Systems Center in San Diego, CA. His research provided support of U.S. Navy mobile marine mammal systems stationed in California, Florida, and Hawaii.

 

In March of 1992, NASA tapped Dr. Linnehan to train as an Astronaut. His first mission was the first mission of its kind, combining a full microgravity studies and a comprehensive life sciences payload. Ten nations and five agencies sponsored studies on this mission. On his next mission, Dr. Linnehan was a researcher and a test subject all at once! The crew studied the effects of microgravity on the brain and nervous system. On his third mission, Dr. Linnehan came to the aid of a household name: Hubble. The crew upgraded the Hubble Space Telescope's systems, and added the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), which photographs more area and distance in space.

 

Unlike the Hubble telescope that allows us, in a way, to look back in time, Dr. Linnehan looks ahead to the future. Using diagnosis skills, "Veterinarians will become 'planetary exobiologists' when we eventually travel to other planets and discover new life." To the aspiring veterinarian, Dr. Linnehan advises, "Keep your long range dreams, but don't let them interfere with the present. Do well in school and lead a well-rounded life. Try not to take yourself or life too seriously and enjoy the experiences from day to day. Eventually you will end up pretty close to where you wanted to be."