MIT alum Nicholas J.M. Patrick (S.M. 1990, Ph.D. 1996, mechanical engineering) and his six astronaut colleagues were launched aboard Discovery on a mission to the International Space Station on Dec. 9. While at MIT, Patrick was a research assistant in the Human-Machine Systems Lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.  He was selected as a NASA astronaut in 1998.  Discovery also carried key elements of MIT's SPHERES experiment developed by the Space Systems Lab in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Photo / John Tylko

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on December 13, 2006 (download PDF).