James D. Halsell

Halsell is the kind of figure I find impossible to file away neatly. A small-town Louisiana kid who became an Air Force officer and flew five Space Shuttle missions, he literally looked down on the planet, and yet his story bends into tragedy with the 2016 crash and his 2021 manslaughter conviction. I won't soften that. What stays with me is how the same person can hold heroism and catastrophic failure in one life. We love clean astronaut myths, but Halsell forces a harder, more honest reckoning with what people are actually capable of, for better and for worse.

James Donald Halsell Jr. (born September 29, 1956) is a retired United States Air Force officer and former NASA astronaut. The veteran of five Space Shuttle missions pled guilty in 2021 to two counts of manslaughter and two counts of assault as a result of a motor vehicle accident in 2016. He is the second American astronaut to spend time in jail after Lisa Nowak.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Name (English)

James D. Halsell

Name (Japanese)

ジェームズ・ハルセル

Reading

じぇーむず・はるせる

Born

September 29, 1956 (age 69)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Monkey

Origin

West Monroe, Louisiana, United States

Blood type

Private

Height

Private

Agency

Private

Occupation

military officer / astronaut / aircraft pilot

Elementary school

Private

Junior high

Private

High school

West Monroe High School

University

Private

Spouse

Private

Children

Private

Parents

Private

Siblings

Private

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B8%E3%82%A7%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0%E3%82%BA%E3%83%BB%E3%83%8F%E3%83%AB%E3%82%BB%E3%83%AB

Tags

• Louisiana
• military officer
• astronaut
• aircraft pilot

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.