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Edwin Jacob Garn (born October 12, 1932) served as a U.S. Senator representing Utah from 1974 to 1993. Garn became the first member of the United States Congress to fly in space when he flew aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery as a payload specialist during NASA mission STS-51-D (April 12-April 19, 1985). He is a member of the United States Republican Party.
Born in Richfield, Utah, Garn earned a Bachelor of Science degree in business and finance from the University of Utah in 1955.
Experience
Senator Garn is a former insurance executive. He served in the United States Navy as a pilot. He also served in the Utah Air National Guard as a pilot and retired as a full Colonel in April 1979. He has flown more than 10,000 hours in military and private civilian aircraft.
Prior to his election to the Senate in 1974, Garn served on the Salt Lake City commission for four years and was elected Mayor in 1971. He was active in the Utah League of Cities and Towns and served as President in 1972. In 1974, he was First Vice President of the National League of Cities and served as Honorary President in 1975.
Garn was elected to a second term in the Senate in November 1980. He received 74% of the vote, the largest victory in a statewide race in Utah history.
Senator Garn was chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and served on three subcommittees: Housing and Urban Affairs, Financial Institutions, and International Finance and Monetary Policy. He also was a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and served as Chairman of the HUD-Independent Agencies Subcommittee. He served on four other Appropriations subcommittees: Energy and Water Resources, Defense, Military Construction, and Interior. Senator Garn served as a member of the Republican leadership from 1979 to 1984 as Secretary of the Republican Conference.
Space Flight
STS-51D was launched from and returned to land at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Its primary objective was to deploy two communications satellites, and to perform electrophoresis and echocardiograph operations in space in addition to a number of other experiments. At the conclusion of the mission, Senator Garn had traveled over 2.5 million miles in 108 Earth orbits, logging over 167 hours in space.
References
- This article contains material and/or images that originally came from a NASA website. All NASA information is in the public domain, with the exception of the usage-restricted NASA logo. For more information, please review NASA's use guidelines (http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/policies.html#Guidelines).
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