Laurel Clark

Laurel Clark's story is a reminder that astronauts are often extraordinary people long before they ever reach orbit. A naval flight surgeon and submarine medical officer, she had already lived a remarkable career of service before joining NASA. The Columbia disaster is one of the great tragedies of spaceflight, and reading the crew's final, hopeful messages from space still hits hard. Clark reportedly marveled at the simple beauty of the Earth and small things like a spider spinning a web in microgravity. That sense of wonder, paired with her courage, is exactly what we should remember her for.

Laurel Clark (March 10, 1961 - February 1, 2003) was an American physician, U.S. Navy captain, and NASA astronaut. She served as a mission specialist aboard Space Shuttle Columbia on the STS-107 mission and died with her six crewmates when the orbiter disintegrated during reentry on February 1, 2003. She was posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor in 2004.

Name (English)

Laurel Clark

Name (Japanese)

ローレル・クラーク

Reading

ろーれる・くらーく

Born

March 10, 1961 – February 1, 2003

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Pisces / Ox

Origin

Ames, Iowa, United States

Occupation

Officer / Astronaut / Physician / Submariner

University

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Awards & achievements

• 2004 Congressional Space Medal of Honor

Motto

Private

• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%AD%E3%83%BC%E3%83%AC%E3%83%AB%E3%83%BB%E3%82%AF%E3%83%A9%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF

Tags

• From Iowa
• Officer
• Astronaut
• Physician

Last updated

2026-06-02

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