Former Astronaut Gets High Again

Inventor, climber, astronaut, Dr. Scott Parazynski fulfilled his childhood dream of making it to the top of Mt. Everest. In the pre-dawn of the Himalayas, he summitted as high as humans can go and still be on earth.

The five-time space traveler carried bits of the actual moon, courtesy of NASA. The gesture was a symbolic early nod to the 40th anniversary of the first humans on the moon July 20, 1969.

Neil Armstrong, after being the first to walk on the lunar surface, became friends with the man recognized as the first man to walk the top of Everest: Sir Edmund Hillary. Armstrong had gathered the bits of moon that Parazynski carried up to Everest yesterday and is now carrying down.

Parazynski had performed daring space walks in his five trips off the earth, but wanted to be a high achiever on the planet as well. Last year, he was within one day of the Everest peak when he suffered severe back pains and headed down instead of up to avoid jeopardizing others.

This year, after back surgery and thorough preparation, he returned to the mountain with added educational outreach, his own inventions, and scientific experiments. Keith Cowling provided base support and communications: www.onorbit.com

Parazynski logged more than 47 hours of spacewalking on 5 shuttle missions between 1994 and 2007, including trips to the Russian Space Station Mir and the International Space Station now orbiting earth. His last push to the top of Mt. Everest or Mt. Qomolangma was ten hours straight of climbing and walking to reach the peak at 8,844.43 meters.

After the more dangerous half of the trip: the descent to Base Camp, Parazynski returns home to his family in Houston. The Stanford Medical grad retired from NASA earlier this year, and is now working with Wyle Business Development in Texas.

How does an Everest high compare to circling the earth at about 17,000 miles per hour? Or to peaks he has climbed in the Andes, Rockies, Cascades, and Alaskan Range? The Doctor will be analyzing his own medical results at high (earth) altitudes as well as sending data he gathered about radiation and botanical growth to scientists. It all begs the question, how will the Stanford grad get high the next time?