May 11, 2000

Doug Peterson
Johnson Space Center, Houston TX
(281/483-5111)

Release: J00-30

Astronaut Joe Edwards Retires From NASA

Shuttle astronaut Joe Frank Edwards, Jr. (Cmdr., USN) retired from NASA and the U.S. Navy on April 30, 2000, and has accepted a position in the private sector.

"We will miss Joe here at NASA. His many contributions over the years have helped us greatly," said James D. Wetherbee, Director of Flight Crew Operations. "We wish him success in his future career."

"I thoroughly enjoyed the challenges of working in the space program," said Edwards. "And I hope that in the future I will be in a position to continue making contributions to space exploration. My co-workers here at NASA are the finest I've ever worked with."

Edwards served as pilot of the orbiter Endeavour on STS-89, the eighth Shuttle-Mir docking mission. He logged over 211 hours during this mission while traveling 3.6 million miles in 138 orbits of the Earth.

Edwards joined NASA in 1995. After initial astronaut candidate training, he worked Space Shuttle and Space Station safety issues and served as Technical Assistant to the Director, Flight Crew Operations Directorate. He also served as NASA Director of Operations in Russia.

For complete biographical information on Edwards, or any other astronaut, see the NASA internet biography home page at http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/.

text-only version of this release