Sonny Carter

Carter played collegiate soccer and ran track while an undergraduate at Emory University. During his senior season, he was captain and most valuable player of the soccer team. In addition to his intercollegiate athletic career, Carter was an intramural wrestling champion. He played professional soccer while he attended medical school. In 1970, he signed with the Atlanta Chiefs of the North American Soccer League (NASL), for which he played three seasons.

Selected by NASA in May 1984, Carter became an astronaut in June 1985, qualified for assignment as a mission specialist on future Space Shuttle flight crews.

Space Shuttle program

Carter was assigned as Extra-vehicular activity (EVA) Representative for the Mission Development Branch of the Astronaut Office when selected to the crew of STS-33. The STS-33 crew launched from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at night on November 22, 1989, aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. The mission carried Department of Defense payloads and other secondary payloads. After 79 orbits of the Earth, this five-day mission concluded on November 27, 1989, with a hard surface landing on Runway 04 at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Carter logged 120 hours in space. At the time of his death in April 1991, Carter was assigned as mission specialist 3 on the crew of STS-42 Discovery, the first International Microgravity Laboratory (IML-1). His place was taken by Dave Hilmers.

Carter was born on August 15, 1947, to parents Manley L. Carter and Elizabeth C. Carter in Macon, Georgia, but considered Warner Robins, Georgia, to be his hometown. He graduated from Lanier High School in Macon in 1965, and during his high school years was actively involved in the Macon-based Troop 19 of the Boy Scouts of America, where he also served a term as Senior Patrol Leader, the highest leadership position for a young man in that BSA troop, and earned its highest rank of Eagle Scout. Carter received a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry from Emory University in Atlanta in 1969, and a Doctor of Medicine degree from there in 1973. During his time at Emory, Carter was a brother in the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. After completing Emory University School of Medicine in 1973, Carter completed internship in internal medicine at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta.

Having died in the line of duty for NASA, Carter's name was added to the Space Mirror Memorial at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Merritt Island, Florida. His name was the first added after the memorial's original construction. After his death, his name was given to the Sonny Carter Training Facility Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, NASA's underwater astronaut training facility, for which he had developed training techniques. In 1989, Emory University inducted him in its Athletic Hall of Fame. The university holds The Sonny Carter Invitational each year in his honor. A plaque also honors his memory in the library of the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity house at Emory, in which he was a Brother.

In 1992 he was inducted into the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame. Sonny Carter Elementary School in Macon, Georgia, which opened in 1993, was named for Carter. The school motto is: "To Challenge the Edge of the Universe." The Society of United States Naval Flight Surgeons (SUSNFS) bestows an annual "Sonny Carter Memorial Award" to the nominee with the most significant contribution to the health, safety and welfare of the operational forces by promoting communication and teamwork amongst the aeromedical community.