Born January 16, 1955, and raised in East Detroit, Michigan, he is married to the former Kathryn M. Bartmann of Arlington Heights, Illinois; they have four children.

He also trained as chief scientist to conduct the entire United States science program, consisting of over one-hundred planned experiments in various disciplines.

Linenger launched aboard U.S. Space Shuttle Atlantis (STS-81) on January 12, 1997, remained on board the space station with two Russian cosmonauts upon undocking of the Shuttle, and eventually returned upon a different mission of Atlantis (STS-84) on May 24, 1997—spending a total of 132 days, 4 hours, 1 minute in space—the longest duration flight of an American male at that time.

During the five-hour walk, he and his Russian colleague tested for the first time ever the newly designed Orlan-M Russian-built spacesuit, installed the Optical Properties Monitor (OPM) and Benton dosimeter on the outer surface of the station, and retrieved for analysis on Earth numerous externally mounted material-exposure panels.

While living aboard the space station, Linenger and his two Russian crewmembers faced numerous difficulties: the most severe fire ever aboard an orbiting spacecraft,[3] failures of onboard systems (oxygen generator, carbon dioxide scrubbing, cooling line loop leaks, communication antenna tracking ability, urine collection and processing facility), a near collision with a resupply cargo ship during a manual docking system test, loss of station electrical power, and loss of attitude control resulting in a slow, uncontrolled "tumble" through space.

In spite of these challenges and added demands on their time (in order to carry out the repair work), they still accomplished all mission goals-spacewalk, flyaround, and one-hundred percent of the planned U.S. science experiments.