Laurel Clark - Submarine Doctor, Mother
Laurel Clark (née Salton) was born in Ames Iowa. She grew up in upstate New York, New Mexico, and Missouri before ending up in Racine Wisconsin. Originally she was interested in studying plants and animals but she says high school psychology teacher Tom Lewis got her interested in medicine. She went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison on a Navy ROTC scholarship and pledged the Gamma Phi Beta sorority.Laurel Salton entered the Navy and became a submarine medical officer. She met fellow Navy doctor Jonathan Clark in a Navy diving class and the two started dating on a SCUBA diving vacation. They got engaged in Scotland and married in Racine Wisconsin.
Laurel Clark was pregnant with her son Iain when NASA interviewed her in 1994 as a potential astronaut candidate. She didn't get selected that year but made it in the next astronaut selection.
Husband Jonathan Clark became a NASA flight surgeon. In that role he was responsible for the health of several astronaut crews including, by coincidence, the STS-96 crew with Rick Husband.
Laurel Clark trained in Russia, learning how to use the Russian Sokol spacesuit inside the Soyuz spacecraft trainer and also going through Russian winter survival training. Initially she thought she might get selected for a long duration mission on the space station, living for four to six months in space, but instead she was selected for the STS-107 mission.
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