Carolyn Griner

Carolyn Griner

Carolyn was born to an Air Force family, and frequently moved in her youth, spending some time near Cape Canaveral. Inspired by her upbringing, Carolyn went to FSU and studied astronautical engineering, doing a co-op at MSFC in the Materials division (beginning in 1964). She participated in early Saturn V testing, and in 1967 graduated and became a full-time employee in the same lab. She would be partially involved with research, such as analyzing metals in weightlessness. However, she found more interest in creating experimental hardware, and also applied to the astronaut corps, to which she became a finalist (the experience of which revealed the complexitudes of the different groups involved in NASA). She would be tranferred into the chief engineers' office, and enjoyed the process of reconciling the many different systems, especially while working on Spacelab. Carolyn also attended UAH in the late 70s for industrial & systems engineering. Following her work as a chief engineer, she would become the payload operations director for Skylab, and eventually progressed to working at NASA headquarters as a division director, although she quickly returned to MSFC, working as a laboratory director, and in various other positions, including deputy and acting center director. Carolyn would retire from NASA in January 2001, but would continue working with SpaceHab. She closes by emphasizing the importance of continued learning through experience.

University of Alabama in Huntsville Archives and Special Collections, Huntsville, Alabama

2006-10-24

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Interviews

Video

Carolyn Griner (Space History Interviews).mp4

Lundquist, Charles

Griner, Carolyn

0:30:41