Published: August 25, 2008 01:06 pm         

OSU grad still aims for space

Dr. Richard T. Jennings refers to himself as a two-time loser in NASA’s selection of astronauts.

The 1971 pre-medical graduate from Oklahoma State University practiced obstetrics and gynecology at the Stillwater Women’s Clinic from 1977-85 and went to work for NASA in 1987. He was there full-time until 1995.

He served as chief of flight medicine and was involved in 45 shuttle flights, including 15 as one of two lead doctors. He was a finalist to be an astronaut in 1991 and ’94.

“I got an awful nice physical exam, though,” joked Jennings, who is residency director of the University of Texas Medical Branch/NASA-Johnson Space Center’s aerospace medicine residency program.

But he is convinced he will get a chance to visit space, and it will be at least partially because of the work he has done.

Jennings is a consultant for Virgin Galactic, which is planning private sub-orbital flights, and works with Space Adventures, which plans to send Richard Garriott to the International Space Station in the fall. Garriott is a legendary video game designer and the son of Enid native Owen Garriott, an astronaut.

For now, private space flights are prohibitively expensive for most, but Jennings said they will soon be more affordable.

“It’s exciting to try to open those doors and provide access to ordinary people in space, and for people that aren’t perfect,” Jennings said.

NASA has always had stringent medical testing for astronauts, but Jennings studies medicine as it relates to space. He has performed zero-gravity surgery and noted Galactic plans to send up famous physicist Stephen Hawking, who suffers from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

“We try our best to help people live their dreams regardless,” Jennings said.

Jennings said his medical work is not that different from most doctors, except for a few added difficulties — like operating without gravity and having clients who could be hundreds of thousands of miles away when they needed his attention — and one big added benefit.

“We us traditional medicine, but we are really helping create geographic diversity for humans,” Jennings said. “We are helping people get off the planet to get to the moon, to get to Mars, a permanent presence in space, which gives us redundancy on human existence. There is a certain imperative to do that.”

Jennings said he had been interested in joining the space program since he was in high school in Tipton.

“(Interest in space is) sort of like catching measles,” Jennings joked. “Everybody gets exposed, but not everybody catches it. I caught it for some reason.”

One thing he didn’t catch was the interest in learning foreign languages. That, he said, is his big regret from college.

“For me, going to Stillwater to college was like going to a foreign country,” Jennings said. “I was in residency in Tulsa before I ever made an airline flight.”

     

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