Samuel #Durrance, who as an #astronomer was one of the first non-career #astronauts to fly with NASA after the loss of space shuttle Challenger, has died at the age of 79: http://www.collectspace.com/news/news-050523a-astronaut-samuel-durrance-obituary.html - on the space shuttle flight STS-35 Durrance spent nearly nine days in orbit in December 1990 conducting round-the-clock observations using the four Astro-1 telescopes that were mounted on a Spacelab pallet in Columbia's payload bay.