Karl Gordon Henize is the closest relative I have that is (at least a little bit) famous. He was a NASA astronaut, and logged 188 hours in space. Most of his life work was studying outer space. He is my Grandma Kathleen's first cousin, so he is also my first cousin, but twice removed. He was the son of Grandma Kathleen's uncle Fred Henize, brother to Grandma Lucy.
When he was 66, Karl tackled Mt. Everest. Unfortunately, his lungs were not able to withstand the high altitude (although I'm guessing he had an oxygen tank) and he passed away while climbing the mountain. He had reached an altitude of 21,000 ft. That is FOUR MILES above sea level! I am incredibly impressed that he tackled such a daunting mountain at that age, and even more impressed that he climbed so far (he ascended about 7,200 feet from the base of the mountain).
This website has more information on why he was on Mt. Everest at the time. It says, "He died in 1993, during a Mount Everest expedition. The purpose of this expedition was to test for NASA a meter called a Tissue Equivalent Proportional Counter (TEPC): testing at different altitudes (17,000 ft, 19,000 ft and 21,000 ft) would reveal how people’s bodies would be affected, including the way bodily tissues behaved, when struck by radiation, and this was important for the planning of long duration space missions.[2] Having reached Advanced Base Camp at 21,300 feet (6,500 m), the expedition was cut short when Henize died from high altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE) on October 5, 1993."
He's so famous, there's even a Wikipedia article about him!
NASA also has a short bio on him on their website.
I think that it's really neat that his Everest hike's purpose was to study the effects of the solar radiation at high altitudes, beyond the protection of the atmosphere. My astronomy professor at BYU met Karl Henize when Henize was teaching at the University of Michigan.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in elementary school, I remember seeing his picture in a chart of astronauts, and hearing that he was the oldest man to go into space (that was before John Glenn went back up).
That's really cool! Thanks for adding to the story!
DeleteBack in elementary school, I had trouble remembering his last name. I asked my teacher if she saw an astronaut on the chart whose name was something like "Chickenfoot". Haha!
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