Meade, Carl Joseph (1950– )

US astronaut. His three space shuttle flights include the Discovery mission in September 1994 when he tested a self-rescue jetpack (a backpack with thruster propulsion to be used to rescue a crew member who becomes untethered), performing NASA's first untethered extravehicular activity for ten years. Meade was a US Air Force test pilot before being selected as an astronaut in 1985. He left NASA and the air force in 1996 to join the Lockheed Martin aircraft corporation as the deputy project manager for the X-33 reusable launch vehicle.