Donald Pettit

Donald Roy Pettit (born April 20, 1955) is an American chemical engineer and a NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of two long-duration stays aboard the International Space Station, one space shuttle mission and a six-week expedition to find meteorites in Antarctica.

Personal

Pettit was raised in Silverton, Oregon, and is an Eagle Scout. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Oregon State University in 1978 and a doctoral degree from the University of Arizona in 1983. He worked as a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory until 1996, when he was selected as an astronaut candidate. He is married and has two twin sons.

International Space Station

Pettit's first space mission was as a mission specialist on ISS Expedition 6 in 2002 and 2003. During his six-month stay aboard the space station, he performed two EVAs to help install external scientific equipment. During free time on his stay aboard the International Space Station, he conducted demonstrations showing how fluids react in an extremely low gravity environment in a series he called "Saturday Morning Science".