WSU alumnus Jerry Linenger encourages graduates to learn something from every experience.
Jerry Linenger even looks at potholes differently than most people do.
An alumnus of the WSU School of Medicine and a former astronaut, Linenger, MD, PhD, was on his way to a press conference that preceded the school’s commencement ceremonies. He was to receive an honorary degree at the ceremonies.
A pothole intervened, flattening one of the car’s tires. Linenger likened the experience to his five-month stay aboard the troubled Russian space station, Mir. With a hearty laugh, he said, "It’s kind of symbolic of Mir. There will be potholes in life."
Dr. Linenger knows of life’s difficulties better than most. While on the space station, he and his two Russian crewmates fought a fire, wrestled with a malfunctioning oxygen generator, faced the complete isolation of space travel, and overcame his anxiety about taking a spacewalk outside a vessel traveling 18,000 miles per hour. Through it all, Linenger said he drew on his past experiences, and they didn’t let him down.
Of his training as a physician, he said, "That’s a skill that comes in handy. (Mir) was very similar to being, say, in the Navy out on a ship where you are the doctor, and you are responsible for the health of the crew." Although the crew on board Mir was much smaller, the environment was more stressful. "We had toxic exposures to ethylene glycol, for example. So the skills as an epidemiologist and a physician came in very handy." He also treated minor burns after the fire and a few illnesses, and recalled a bit of psychology to ease some of the feelings of isolation. "I used to work at the Lafayette Clinic during medical school. That’s more extreme psychology, but it does pay off."
While he learned many new skills, including the Russian language, Linenger said, all of the astronauts tapped their past experiences. "Astronauts now have all different backgrounds. You can be a deep-sea diver, a vet, a physician, a jet pilot, whatever; it doesn’t really matter. When you get down to Johnson Space Center, you do basic training to become an astronaut," he explained. "None of us Earthlings know how to do spacewalks. That’s a skill you have to learn no matter what your background is in life."
On the other hand, he said, the medical degree had advantages for a long-duration space flight. "I was able to do some basic studies on myself and understand human physiology as it normally exists on earth and then have an appreciation of the changes you undergo in space. Some of those are subtle changes that I think astronauts without that medical background would not pick up."
Now that he’s been back on Earth for a year, the 43-year-old Linenger is taking some time off. He has retired from the US Navy and is beginning to look at the possibilities outside space travel and probably outside medicine. "Whatever I do, I think I’m going to go up some other steep learning curve and have fun exploring some new area. I think my background, in whatever I end up doing, is going to serve me well."
He added, "So this is sort of half-time, and I’m spending some time with my two little boys, my wife and enjoying Michigan."