- He and his wife had two daughters and four sons: Susan Nancy, Stephanie Brand Lowery, Patrick Richard, Kevin Stephen, Erik Ryan, and Dane Vance.
- Brand again commanded Columbia on the thirty-eighth flight of the Shuttle, this time with a crew of seven. The night launch on December 2, 1990 started a 9-day mission devoted to round-the-clock observations of stars and other celestial objects.
- Brand commanded the Challenger on the tenth flight of the Space Shuttle on February 3, 1984. His crew included Commander Robert Gibson, pilot, and three mission specialists, Captain Bruce McCandless II, Dr. Ron McNair, and Lieutant Colonel Robert Stewart. The flight saw McCandless and Stewart performing two spectacular extravehicular activities.
- Brand was commander of Columbia for the first fully operational flight of the Shuttle Transportation System, which launched on November 11, 1982.
- His first space flight (July 15, 1975) was as Apollo command module pilot on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project mission. This flight resulted in the historic meeting in space between American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts.
- His flight experience included 9,669 flying hours, which includes 8,089 hours in jets, 391 hours in helicopters, 746 hours in spacecraft, and more than 30 types of military aircraft.
- His education was varied: a bachelor of science degree in Business from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1953, a bachelor of science degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1960, and a master's degree in Business Administration from UCLA in 1964.
- Brand was chiefly a test pilot. He was a commissioned officer and naval aviator with the U.S. Marine Corps from 1953 to 1957. His military assignments included a 15-month tour in Japan as a jet fighter pilot. Later, Brand continued service in the Marine Forces Reserve and Air National Guard jet fighter squadrons until 1966.
- Brand was a test pilot and NASA astronaut. He served as command module pilot during the first U.S.-Soviet joint space flight in 1975, and as Commander of three Space Shuttle missions.
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