W5LFL 1947 Enid, Oklahoma

Owen K. Garriott born in 1930 was around age 17 when he filled out this QSL card. Owen was from Enid, Oklahoma. He served in the U.S. Navy, he held a PH.D. in Electrical Engineering. NASA enlisted Owen in their astronaut program and he was famous for the Skylab Missions. Garriott went on two space missions. In 1973 he was the pilot on Skylab 3, a 59-day mission to the Skylab Space Station that set a new record for the longest spaceflight. In 1983 he was a mission specialist on STS-9, a 10-day flight of the space shuttle Columbia that carried Spacelab, a science laboratory built by the European Space Agency. Between the two space missions, Garriott worked for the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, he held the position of director of science and applications. From 1984 to 1986 he was project scientist in the Space Station Project Office.

Owen later worked as a consultant for several aerospace companies. From 1988 to 1993 he was vice president of space programs at Teledyne Brown Engineering. He received the NASA Distinguished Service Medal in 1973 and the NASA Space Flight Medal in 1983.

Info courtesy of W8SU, K8CX
QSL from the estate of W0TOD
K8CX Collection