Peggy Whitson is one of the most popular and richest Astronaut who was born on February 9, 1960 in Mount Ayre, Iowa, United States. When she took part in Expedition 16, she became the first female commanding officer on the International Space Station. In 2017 she set a record of the longest space flight by a woman.
She made history as the first women, and so did the astronaut She achieved a first for women, as did astronaut Sally Ride..
Whitson grew up on a farm outside the town of Beaconsfield, Iowa with her sister, Kathy and her parents, Keith and Beth. Her parents were farmers and her decision to become an astronaut came after she watched the first moon landing on television as a child in 1969. Whitson graduated from Mount Ayr Community High School in 1978 and received a bachelor of science degree in biology and chemistry from Iowa Wesleyan College in 1981. She then went on to earn her doctorate degree in biochemistry from Rice University in 1986 , and following completion of her graduate work, continued at Rice as a Robert A Welch Post-doctoral Fellow until October 1986. She is married to Clarence F. Sams.
Following her fellowship at Rice, she began working at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, as a National Research Council Resident Research Associate. From April 1988 until September 1989, Whitson served as the Supervisor for the Biochemistry Research Group at KRUG International, a medical sciences contractor at NASA-JSC.
She was married to Clarence Sams in 1989.
