Heike John (now Heike Walpot; born 19 June 1960) is a German retired swimmer and former astronaut candidate.
| Personal information | |||||||||||||||
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| Born | 19 June 1960 Düsseldorf, West Germany | ||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.76 m (5 ft 9 in) | ||||||||||||||
| Weight | 67 kg (148 lb) | ||||||||||||||
| Sport | |||||||||||||||
| Sport | Swimming | ||||||||||||||
| Club | Wasserfreunde Weisweiler, Eschweiler | ||||||||||||||
Medal record
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She won a bronze medal at the 1977 European Aquatics Championships.[1] She competed at the 1976 Summer Olympics in the 100 m and 200 m backstroke events but did not reach the finals.[2] During her career she won five national titles in the 100 m (1977) and 200 m (1977, 1978) backstroke and 200 m medley (1977, 1978).[3] She missed the 1980 Summer Olympics because of their boycott by West Germany.
After her swimming career, she studied medicine at RWTH Aachen and earned a doctorate in 1987. In the same year she was selected as one of five West German astronaut candidates for the Spacelab D-2 mission, along with Hans Schlegel, Ulrich Walter, Gerhard Thiele and Renate Brümmer. She served as Cap com during the D-2 mission in 1993, but was never assigned to a spaceflight herself. After retiring as an astronaut, she became a professional pilot for Lufthansa in 1996 and retired as a Senior First Officer in the Boeing 747 fleet in the mid 2010s. She is married to astronaut Hans Schlegel.[4]
References edit
- ^ Heike JOHN. les-sports.info
- ^ Heike John Archived 18 December 2012 at the Wayback Machine. sports-reference.com
- ^ Schwimmen - Deutsche Meisterschaften (Damen) Teil 2 Teil 3. sport-komplett.de
- ^ Simon, Rolf-Michael (14 February 2008). "Die Frau des Astronauten" (in German). NRZ. Retrieved 7 June 2018.
External links edit
- Walpot, Heike at astronautix.com
- Heike Walpot at spacefacts.de (in German)
- Heike Walpot (John) at astronaut.ru (in Russian)
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