Business & Science
Bernard Harris
Temple-born physician and astronaut Bernard Harris became the first African American to perform a spacewalk in 1995 after education in San Antonio, at the University of Houston and at Texas Tech's medical school.
- Roster rank
- #177
- Category
- Business & Science
- Subject type
- Person
- Profile source
- Published Texas Icons profile
Texas story
Life and career
Bernard Anthony Harris Jr. was born in Temple in 1956 and graduated from Sam Houston High School in San Antonio. He earned a biology degree from the University of Houston and a medical degree from Texas Tech University before moving into aerospace medicine and astronaut training.
Harris flew on STS-55 and STS-63. During the latter mission in February 1995, he became the first African American to perform a spacewalk. His profile joins medicine and spaceflight without flattening either field: the Texas education pipeline is as central to the story as the milestone in orbit.
Defining work
What to know
- first African American spacewalk
- STS-55
- STS-63
- University of Houston
- Texas Tech School of Medicine
Timeline
Key milestones
- 1956Born in Temple, Texas.
- 1974Graduates from Sam Houston High School in San Antonio.
- 1978Earns a biology degree from the University of Houston.
- 1982Earns an M.D. from Texas Tech University School of Medicine.
- 1995Becomes the first African American to perform a spacewalk during STS-63.
Texas connections
Places in the story
Temple
Birthplace.
High-school education.
Houston
University of Houston education and NASA career region.
Lubbock
Texas Tech medical education.
Legacy
Why the story lasts
Harris's spacewalk is a national milestone, but the educational path that led there is unusually Texas-centered across Temple, San Antonio, Houston and Lubbock.
His career also demonstrates the overlap between clinical medicine, aerospace physiology and human spaceflight.
Sources
Research trail
Cross-linked profiles