Thora Waters Halstead

NASA Scientist

August 20, 1928 - March 9, 2016

Of McLean, Virginia peacefully departed life at age 87 at her home on March 9, 2016 after a long illness. She is survived by her husband of 60 years, Colonel (Retired) Warren W. Halstead; daughter, Gail H. Capp; son-in-law David J. Capp and three grandchildren; Paul Douglas Capp, Kathryn Lillian Capp and Kimberlee Lynne Capp. She was preceded in death by her son; Douglas Clay Halstead, age 19 in 1976.

She retired from NASA Life Sciences in 1994 where she was the Manager of the Space Biology Program; Life and Biomedical Sciences and Applications Division. Of note, she was the Program Scientist for the Space Shuttle launched in September 1992. Her numerous experiments and published research articles (more than 40) focused on the study of how the cells of living organisms respond to a low-gravity environment. She was a founding member and past president of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology (ASGSB), a 500+ member society with worldwide scientific community membership. She earned degrees in Microbiology from Washington State University (BS), the University of Texas at Austin, (MS), and the University of Maryland, College Park (PhD). After retiring from NASA, in addition to consulting for the Biosciences in Space community, she enjoyed travelling, cooking, painting and making ceramics. Most of all, she enjoyed spending time with her grandchildren who called her, “Sweetie”. She made specialty birthday cakes, was a guest speaker in their schools, attended their sports and academic achievement events, and helped with countless school projects.

Viewing will be on March 18 from 2-4 and 6-8 pm at Murphy’s Funeral Home, 1102 West Broad Street in Falls Church, Virginia. Interment will be in Arlington National Cemetery at a later date.