Garrett Erin Reisman (; born February 10, 1968) is an American engineer and former NASA astronaut. He was a backup crew member for Expedition 15 and joined Expedition 16 aboard the International Space Station for a short time before becoming a member of Expedition 17. He returned to Earth on June 14, 2008 on board STS-124 on Space Shuttle Discovery. He was a member of the STS-132 mission that traveled to the International Space Station aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis from May 14 to 26, 2010. He is a consultant at SpaceX and a Professor of Astronautics Practice at the University of Southern California's Viterbi School of Engineering. Biography Reisman was born in Morristown, New Jersey to a Jewish family and is a 1986 graduate of Parsippany High School, a 1991 graduate of the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania, and received his masters and doctorate degrees in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1992 and 1997, respectively. While at Caltech he shared a doctoral advisor, Christopher E. Brennan, with another future NASA astronaut, Bob Behnken. Later both astronauts would launch on their first flights into space together on STS-123. NASA career In June 2003, Reisman served as an aquanaut during the NEEMO 5 mission aboard the Aquarius underwater laboratory, living and working under water for fourteen days. Expedition 16/17 Reisman was assigned as a long duration crewmember on the International Space Station. He launched as Mission Specialist 5 aboard the STS-123 (Space Shuttle Endeavour) mission on March 11, 2008. After docking, he took part in the first spacewalk of the mission. Reisman stayed on board as flight engineer 2 for part of Expedition 16 and part of Expedition 17. Having completed his mission, he returned to Earth as mission specialist 5 aboard STS-124 on June 14, 2008. During his time on board the ISS he had seen two visiting Space Shuttles and the installation of the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) and the pressurized section of the Japanese Experiment Module "Kibo". Reisman was the first Jewish crew member on the International Space Station. He sent a greeting from space to the people of Israel during the celebration of Israel's 60th Independence Day in May 2008. He also did an entertaining, high definition video of "A day in the life of a space station crew member" while on board as well as