Ronald Erwin McNair (October 21, 1950 – January 28, 1986) was an American NASA astronaut and physicist. He died at the age of 35 during the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L, in which he was serving as one of three mission specialists in a crew of seven.
Prior to the Challenger disaster, McNair flew as a mission specialist on STS-41-B aboard Challenger from February 3 to 11, 1984, becoming the second African-American in space.