"Astronaut in Orbit Refuses Return: Consequences and Controversy"

Taylor Wang, a Chinese-born American physicist, became the first person of Chinese ethnicity to fly into space on the STS-51-B mission in 1985 as a payload specialist. He had developed the "Drop Dynamics Module" experiment to study the behavior of droplets in zero gravity. When the experiment failed to work in orbit, Wang's desperation led him to say he wouldn't return if not given a chance to repair it. This incident sheds light on the challenges faced by non-NASA astronauts and payload specialists during early Space Shuttle missions, highlighting the lasting consequences into the era of commercial spaceflight.