Following in Sacco's footsteps
by Brian Parker - Editor-in-Chief-Emeritus
David Matthiesen, assistant professor of Materials Science at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, served as an alternate payload specialist for USML-2. He said that he was happy to be a part of the space program and that he had received funding for a gascan (an experiment module), which is similar to some of the experiments that WPI students have worked on for other shuttle missions. His experiment was looking for structural defects in semi-conductor crystals, grown in the crystal growth furnace aboard USML-2.
He commented that the snow wasn't all that unusual for him, for unlike the other astronauts who wintered in Houston, he'd seen Cleveland break its own snowfall record. Matthiesen also worked at GTE's labs in Waltham, MA, where he worked on another experiment that had flown on another shuttle mission. When asked if he'd like to get the chance to fly someday, he said: "Sure, I'd love to follow the example that Sacco set, I hope to follow in his large footsteps!"
