Ronald McNair was born October 21, 1950, in Lake City, South Carolina. He is best known as a physicist and NASA astronaut who was one of the crew of the Challenger space shuttle.
Most people do not know that in the summer of 1959, a South Carolina librarian told a young McNair that he could not check out books from the segregated library. He refused to leave and sat on a counter. The police and his mother were called, and McNair was allowed to check out the books. Ironically, that library is now named after him.
In 1976, McNair received a PhD degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the guidance of Michael Feld, becoming nationally recognized for his work in the field of laser physics. That same year, McNair won the AAU Karate gold medal. He would subsequently win five regional championships and earn a fifth-degree black belt in karate.
McNair flew as a mission specialist on STS-41-B aboard Challenger from February 3 to 11, 1984, becoming the second African American to fly in space. Sadly, on January 28, 1986, McNair and six crew members were killed when the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrated nine miles above the Atlantic Ocean, 73 seconds after liftoff.
McNair was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 2004, along with all crew members lost in the Challenger and Columbia disasters.
