The U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame will honor its 2025 class of inductees, record-setting space travelers Peggy Whitson and Bernard Harris, at a public ceremony in Florida this spring. There is a possibility, though, that one of the honorees will not be able to be able to attend the festivities. That is because, at the time, Whitson may be back in space.
Although the Hall of Fame’s rules require that all inductees be retired from NASA’s astronaut corps, the criteria says nothing about flying commercially. Whitson left the agency’s ranks in 2018 and then joined Axiom Space, a Houston-based space services company, for which she has already commanded one private mission to the International Space Station (ISS) and is currently set to fly another this spring.
If the May 31 ceremony and Axiom Mission 4 (Ax-4) overlap — the launch is currently targeted for no earlier than late April, but it could slip — then Whitson will be the first person to enter the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame while in orbit, after 109 enshrinements on the ground.
That would be the latest record for Whitson, who has also spent more time in space — 675 days on four missions — than any other American or woman. At 64, she is the oldest woman to orbit Earth and has performed the most spacewalks, 10, by any female astronaut.
Related: Peggy Whitson: Record-holding astronaut
Whitson’s fellow 2025 Hall of Fame classmate also holds a spacewalk record. Bernard Harris became the first Black astronaut to perform an EVA (extravehicular activity) during the second of his two space shuttle missions in 1995.
“Harris and Whitson continue to serve as exemplary role models in their post-NASA careers. What a tremendous honor to induct them into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame,” Curt Brown, who as a space shuttle commander was chosen for induction in 2013 and now chairs the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation (ASF), the organization that stewards the selection process, said in a statement.
Harris became a NASA astronaut in 1990, after he completed a fellowship at Ames Research Center in California and served as a research scientist and flight surgeon at Johnson Space Center in Houston.
His clinical investigations into how astronauts adapt to space led to the creation of in-flight health countermeasures, including exercise equipment used today on the ISS.
As the crew medical officer on STS-55, his first mission into space in 1993, Harris conducted the first physical examination in space, the first telemedicine conference from space and administered the first IV (intravenous injection) on humans in space. While on board the space shuttle Columbia, Harris helped conduct nearly 90 biological and Earth science studies during the 10-day flight.
Harris’ second launch was on Discovery with the first shuttle crew to rendezvous with Russia’s space station Mir. On Feb. 9, 1995, together with his fellow STS-63 crewmate Michael Foale, Harris exited the shuttle for a 4-hour, 39-minute EVA. During the spacewalk, the first by an African-African astronaut, Harris tested new thermal protection for spacesuits, used a new digital checklist, handled a satellite and evaluated tools for later use outside of the ISS.
In total, Harris logged more than 18 days in space. He left NASA in 1996 but continued to contribute to the agency by furthering his research and serving on numerous health, safety and advisory panels. He is currently the president and CEO of Vesalius Ventures, which invests in healthcare technologies, and the founder and president of the Harris Foundation, which has partnered with NASA to provide science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) programs throughout the nation for more than 25 years.
Related: Interview with Bernard Harris, the 1st African-American spacewalker
Whitson, like Harris, began working at the Johnson Space Center as a research scientist before being named an astronaut candidate with NASA’s 16th class in 1996. She was serving as the project scientist for the Shuttle-Mir program when Harris made his history-making EVA.
Whitson’s three NASA spaceflights were all stays on the International Space Station lasting six months or longer. As a flight engineer on the Expedition 5 crew in 2002, she launched and returned to Earth on the U.S. space shuttle, was named the station’s first science officer and was one of only 16 NASA astronauts to perform a spacewalk wearing a Russian Orlan spacesuit.
From October 2007 to April 2008, Whitson served as the first female commander of the ISS, leading Expedition 16. Arriving and departing by Russia’s Soyuz TMA-11 spacecraft, Whitson oversaw the continued assembly of the orbiting laboratory, including conducting five spacewalks — two of which were unplanned, in response to a failing rotary joint for the station’s power-providing solar arrays.
Back on Earth, Whitson was appointed chief of NASA’s Astronaut Office in 2009. She was both the first woman and the first non-military officer to hold the position.
Whitson returned to the ISS on Soyuz MS-03 in 2016 and spent almost 200 days aboard the complex as part of its 50th, 51st and 52nd expedition crews. It was during this flight that she broke the record for the most spacewalks by a woman and surpassed the most total time in space by an American.
As Axiom Space’s director of human spaceflight, Whitson became the first woman to lead a commercial spaceflight, Axiom Mission 2 (Ax-2), and only the second NASA astronaut to return to the ISS after leaving the U.S. space agency. She is now assigned to Ax-4, which will mark a return to human spaceflight for India, Poland and Hungary by her three crewmates.
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida will host the Astronaut Hall of Fame ceremony under its display of the retired space shuttle Atlantis. The public is invited to see Harris and Whitson be added to the hall’s honorees.
“The U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame welcomes two exceptional and trailblazing veterans of the space program who contributed significantly to NASA’s mission and program,” said Brown.
A formal gala, organized by the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, will celebrate the two new inductees that evening at Kennedy’s Apollo/Saturn V Center.
The ASF administered the committee of Astronaut Hall of Fame members, former NASA officials, historians and journalists who selected the 2025 class. To be eligible, astronauts must have made their first flight at least 15 years before the induction, must be U.S. citizens and either a NASA-trained shuttle commander, pilot, mission specialist or a space station commander or flight engineer who has orbited Earth at least once.
Founded in 1990, the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame is part of the Heroes & Legends attraction at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Harris and Whitson’s likenesses, etched in glass and mounted with their embroidered mission patches, will go on display after they are inducted.
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Article by:Source: robert@collectspace.com (Robert Z. Pearlman)
