Ronald J. Garan Jr.

Ronald John Garan Jr., born on October 30, 1961, is a distinguished American retired NASA astronaut whose career spans military service, engineering, and space exploration. After earning his degree from the State University of New York College at Oneonta in 1982, Garan joined the United States Air Force, where he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in 1984. His journey as a fighter pilot began with the F-16, during which he flew combat missions in both Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm.

Before his transition to the realm of space, Garan served as the Operations Officer of the 40th Flight Test Squadron. His passion for exploration led him to NASA, where he first launched into space as a mission specialist on the STS-124 mission in May 2008, contributing to the assembly and maintenance of the International Space Station (ISS).

Garan's remarkable career includes a second journey to the ISS on April 4, 2011, where he spent six months as a member of Expedition 27. Over the course of his time in space, he accumulated a total of one hundred seventy-eight days, traveled more than seventy-one million miles, and completed two thousand eight hundred forty-two orbits of Earth. His dedication to space exploration is further highlighted by his participation in four spacewalks, totaling twenty-seven hours and three minutes of extravehicular activity, as well as eighteen days spent on the ocean floor during the NEEMO-9 undersea mission.