Frederick Weldon Leslie
Frederick Weldon Leslie is a Panamanian-born American scientist, engineer, and shuttle . His single spaceflight places him in the group of researchers who flew to operate specialized laboratory investigations rather than to serve as career NASA astronauts.
- Born
- December 19, 1951
- Died
- N/A
- Birthplace
- Ancón, Panamá Province,Panama
Flights
1
Spacewalks
0
EVA time
N/A
In space
15 days, 21 hours, 34 minutes
Bio
Leslie's academic work centered on fluid dynamics, atmospheric science, and microgravity research. Before flight, he worked with NASA as a scientist and payload specialist candidate, preparing for experiments that required direct crew operation inside Spacelab.
He flew on STS-73 in 1995, the United States Microgravity Laboratory-2 mission aboard Columbia. Leslie worked as a payload specialist during a long-duration shuttle laboratory flight focused on combustion, materials, fluids, biotechnology, and microgravity physics.
His background matters because Spacelab depended on scientists who could bring laboratory judgment into orbit. Leslie's work represented the shuttle program's effort to use crewed spaceflight as a research platform, not only as a transportation system.