Personal Data
    Richard J. Hieb was born September 21, 1955 in Jamestown, North Dakota.   He is married to Jeannie Hendricks Hieb.  They have two children.  His parents are Mr. and Mrs. Fred Hieb.

Education
    Hieb received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Math and Physics from Northwest Nazarene College in 1977.  He earned a Master of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Colorado in 1979.

Experience
    After graduating from the University of Colorado,  Mr. Hieb began working for NASA.  He worked in the Mission Control Center.  He had extensive background in on-orbit procedures development.

    Hieb was selected by NASA in June 1985. He became an astronaut in July 1986 and qualified for an assignment as a mission specialist on future Space Shuttle flight crews.

    Hieb flew on the crew of STS-39 aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery.  This mission was launched on April 29, 1991 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  He operated the RMS to release the IBSS, and then he used it to retrieve the IBSS a day and a half later. After 134 orbits of the Earth, the crew landed at California, on May 6, 1991.

    On Richard Hieb's second space flight, he was a a mission specialist on the crew of STS-49. During that mission, Hieb along with astronaut Pierre Thuot, performed three space walks.  This mission resulted in the capture and repair of the stranded Intelsat VI F3 communications satellite.

    Hieb's third space walk involved the first ever three-person space walk.  This was the longest space walk in history. It lasted 8 hours and 29 minutes.  It broke a twenty year old record that was held by Apollo 17 astronauts. The crew landed at Edwards Air Force Base after orbiting the Earth 141 times in 213 hours and traveling 3.7 million miles.

    Mr. Hieb was the payload commander on the second flight of the International Microgravity Laboratory on Space Shuttle Mission STS-65 which launched on July 8, 1984 from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  It returned there on July 23, 1994.  It set a new flight duration record for the Space Shuttle program. During the fifteen day flight the crew conducted more that 80 experiments on materials and life sciences research in microgravity. After 236 orbits of Earth, their mission was completed.

    After a successful career, Richard J. Hieb left the Astronaut Office in 1995. He was instrumental  in investigating the Columbia accident.