Thomas Marshburn

Tom Marshburn, MD, is an Emergency Medicine physician and NASA astronaut. He is a veteran of three spaceflights to the International Space Station, and is one of the few humans in history to have flown on three different spacecraft: the Space Shuttle, the Russian Soyuz, and the SpaceX Crew Dragon. 

Born in North Carolina and the youngest of seven siblings, Tom was determined to strike out on a different path and not follow his siblings into medicine. While attending Davidson College, where he ultimately earned a bachelor’s degree in Physics, Tom embarked on a 6 month backpacking journey along the Pacific Crest Trail, hiking along the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges from Canada to Mexico almost entirely on his own. Successfully completing the trail and his undergraduate education, Tom continued to pursue his love of physics, earning a masters degree in Engineering Physics from the University of Virginia. 

It was then that he discovered he shared his siblings’ passion for medicine. He attended medical school at Wake Forest University, then completed his residency in Emergency Medicine in Toledo, OH, where he served as a Life Flight physician, treating critically ill patients in the field and transporting them to the hospital. Shortly thereafter, he was accepted into the inaugural class of the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston’s Space Medicine Fellowship. Upon completion of the fellowship, Dr. Marshburn became a NASA flight surgeon, providing medical care to astronauts. Tom’s first NASA assignment was to support the NASA-Mir program, including tours of duty in Russia, ultimately becoming fluent in Russian. From Russian Mission Control he cared for the crews that experienced the three worst disasters that can befall a crew in space: a fire, a spacecraft collision with a rapid decompression, and a toxic spill, all of which occurred aboard the Russian Mir Space Station. For this work he was awarded both the NASA and the Lyndon B. Johnson Superior Achievement Awards.

After ten years as a flight surgeon and four applications to join the NASA Astronaut Corps, Dr. Marshburn was finally accepted in 2004. Following his initial astronaut candidate training, he was assigned as a mission specialist to STS-127, a 16-day mission on the space shuttle Endeavour to the International Space Station (ISS). During the mission, Tom performed three spacewalks, installing an experimental platform on the Japanese module of the station, and exchanging multiple industrial batteries essential to supplying power to the space station. 

Six months after returning to Earth, he was assigned to fly again, this time as a flight engineer on the Russian Soyuz for a long-duration mission back to the ISS. After spending the next two years training in the US, Russia, Japan, Canada, and Germany, he launched on the Soyuz in December 2012, spending five months living and working aboard the ISS as a member of Expeditions 34 and 35. Just three days prior to returning to Earth, Tom and his crew mate, American astronaut Chris Cassidy, undertook an emergency spacewalk to repair a dangerous ammonia leak threatening the space station. Only 36 hours from the moment the crew discovered the ammonia leak, Tom and Chris opened the hatch of the airlock to begin their spacewalk, a process that usually requires weeks of preparation. This remains an American record for shortest preparation time for a spacewalk.  

Upon his return to Earth, Dr. Marshburn was assigned as Deputy Chief for a new Integration Division within the Johnson Space Center, leading 135 engineers and astronauts within NASA’s Flight Operations Directorate while awaiting his next flight assignment. In 2021, that assignment came, and Tom launched as the pilot of Crew 3 on SpaceX’s Dragon Endurance on Nov 10, 2021, joining the crew of Expedition 66. He became the Commander of Expedition 67 in March 2022, and was the first American to participate in the exchange of command of the space station with Russian cosmonauts during the Russia-Ukraine conflict. During his time as Commander, Tom also lead the ISS crew as they welcomed the Axiom-1 Private Astronaut crew, the first time private astronauts flew aboard the ISS. After this six-month mission, Dr. Marshburn returned again to Earth in May 2022. 

Overall, Tom has spent over 337 days in space, and has conducted 5 spacewalks. He holds both private and commercial pilot licenses, with instrument and aerobatics ratings. He has logged over 1000 hours in NASA’s T-38 cockpit. Tom is married, and his wife Ann is also a physician. They have one daughter. Tom loves sharing his love for spaceflight, medicine, exploration and STEM with everyone. He has also consulted with Pixar, and is credited as an advisor on the movie “Lightyear.” His enthusiasm and curiosity is infectious, enrapturing audiences, motivating them to push their own boundaries, instilling the belief that the sky is never the limit.

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