He served on the space shuttle Challenger mission in February 1984 that marked the first flight of the manned manoeuvring unit and the first use of the Canadarm, which he operated. McNair died in the Challenger tragedy in 1986.

Born in Lake City, South Carolina, McNair was awarded a PhD in Physics by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976. He did research at the Hughes Research Laboratories in Malibu, California, on satellite-to-satellite space communications. He was selected as an astronaut in 1978.