Joseph's son (Musgrave's 1st cousin, four times removed) was artist and sculptor William Wetmore Story.

William's son (Musgrave's second cousin, thrice removed) was painter Julian Russell Story.

He dropped out of St. Mark's in his senior year when a car accident "caused him to miss a substantial amount of vital pre-graduation exam schooling.

He served as an aviation electrician, instrument technician and aircraft crew chief while completing duty assignments in Korea, Japan and Hawaii, and aboard the carrier USS Wasp in the Far East.

Musgrave's aviator brother Percy (1933–1959), who also served on USS Wasp, died on a mission when the carrier "ran over him" after a takeoff crash.

[4] An accomplished parachutist, he has made more than 800 free falls, including over 100 experimental free-fall descents involved with the study of human aerodynamics.

[9] Following his graduation from Syracuse University, Musgrave was briefly employed as a mathematician and operations analyst by the Eastman Kodak Company in Rochester, New York in 1958.

Musgrave participated in the design and development of all Space Shuttle extra-vehicular activity equipment, including spacesuits, life support systems, airlocks and Manned Maneuvering Units.

Prior to John Glenn's return to space in 1998, Musgrave held the record for the oldest person in orbit at age 61.

On STS-51-F/Spacelab-2, the crew aboard Challenger launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, on July 29, 1985, and landed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on August 6, 1985.

Following 79 orbits, the mission concluded on November 27, 1989, with a landing at sunset on Runway 04 at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

The primary mission objective was accomplished with the successful deployment of a Defense Support Program (DSP) satellite with an Inertial Upper Stage (IUS) rocket booster.

The mission was concluded in 110 orbits of the Earth with Atlantis returning to a landing on the lakebed at Edwards Air Force Base, California, on December 1, 1991.

The free-flying WSF created a super vacuum in its wake in which to grow thin film wafers for use in semiconductors and the electronics industry.

The ORFEUS instruments, mounted on the reusable Shuttle Pallet Satellite, studied the origin and makeup of stars.

In completing this mission he logged a record 278 Earth orbits and traveled over 7 million miles in 17 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes.

[19][20][21] His hobbies include chess, flying, gardening, literary criticism, poetry, microcomputers, parachuting, photography, reading, running, scuba diving, and soaring.