The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)

Bonnie Dunbar: Space hero with links to Dundee

- GRAEME STRACHAN

As the world celebrates the 60th anniversar­y of Yuri Gagarin’s historic flight to the stars, one former astronaut with ties to Dundee can look back on a career at the heart of the space travel.

Bonnie Dunbar was inspired to follow her dreams by her Scots grandparen­ts and went on to become a five-time space hero.

Dr Dunbar, 72, worked for 27 years at Nasa, successful­ly completing five Shuttle missions. She also forged links between the RRS Discovery and the Space Shuttle Discovery and was heavily involved in founding the Scottish Space School.

Dr Dunbar’s pioneering grandfathe­r left Dundee for Ellis Island, New York, with little more than high hopes and a pioneering spirit.

Charles Cuthill Dunbar was 19 and had been working in jute factories. He worked in upstate New York for a year breaking horses and earned enough money to establish a ranch in a Scottish community in Oregon where he met his wife Mary West at a Portland baseball game. She was originally from Banffshire.

“They were married and had three sons of which my father was the middle son,” said Dr Dunbar.

“When grandpa played the fiddle, grandma used to dance the Highland fling. Unfortunat­ely, I never met her; she died before I was born.

“I learned from him that if you have a vision, and if you follow your dreams, and you’re willing to work for them, this is important.”

Dr Dunbar was raised on a cattle ranch in the eastern Washington town of Outlook and searched for Sputnik in the night sky when she was eight.

She said: “I’m pretty sure we saw it, because eastern Washington has clear night skies. I just became completely engrossed in any book about space. It was what sparked my interest.”

She was 12 when Soviet cosmonaut Gagarin became the first human to journey into space on April 12, 1961.

She said: “When I told my parents I wanted to be an astronaut they were very supportive.”

She gained bachelor of science and master of science degrees in ceramic engineerin­g from the University of Washington and after spells with Boeing and Rockwell Internatio­nal Space Division applied when she heard that Nasa had opened the astronaut programme to women. Initially she was rejected but in 1980 her dream came true when she was accepted.

Her first flight aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1985 broke new ground. It was the first mission to carry eight crew members, the largest to fly in space.

Dr Dunbar’s grandfathe­r died just a few years before her first mission but she said: “He would have been very proud. My grandmothe­r would have been thrilled, too.”

Further missions came with flights on the Space Shuttles Atlantis, Endeavour, Columbia and again on Challenger.

Dr Dunbar found herself heavy involved in the review teams when the latter pair were lost in accidents claiming the lives of all the crew on board.

Dr Dunbar, who retired from Nasa in 2005, has visited Dundee several times and the city forged close links with Nasa when the city’s sea-bound Discovery was twinned with its Space Shuttle namesake. She was awarded an honorary degree by Dundee University in 2002.

 ??  ?? SPACE ACE: Bonnie Dunbar was inspired by the exploits of Yuri Gagarin, below, to become an astronaut and travelled on five shuttle missions.
SPACE ACE: Bonnie Dunbar was inspired by the exploits of Yuri Gagarin, below, to become an astronaut and travelled on five shuttle missions.
 ??  ?? Meeting President George H Bush at the White House.
Meeting President George H Bush at the White House.
 ??  ?? Dr Dunbar as part of the mission to the Spacelab.
Dr Dunbar as part of the mission to the Spacelab.
 ??  ?? Grandfathe­r Charles Dunbar settled in Oregon.
Grandfathe­r Charles Dunbar settled in Oregon.
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