Robert Thirsk

Robert Thirsk (born August 17, 1953, New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada) is the first Canadian astronaut to make a long-duration spaceflight. Thirsk received bachelor’s and master’s degrees, respectively, in mechanical engineering from the University of Calgary in 1976 and from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978. He earned a doctorate in medicine in 1982 from McGill University in Montreal. He was practicing medicine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Montreal in 1983 when he...