Mike Mullane

Biography

Colonel Mullane was born September 10, 1945 in Wichita Falls, Texas but spent much of his youth in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he currently resides. Upon his graduation from West Point in 1967, he was commissioned in the United States Air Force. As a Weapon Systems Operator aboard RF-4C Phantom aircraft, he completed 134 combat missions in Vietnam. He holds a Master`s of Science Degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology and is also a graduate of the Air Force Flight Test Engineer School at Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Mullane was selected as a Mission Specialist in 1978 in the first group of Space Shuttle Astronauts. He completed three space missions aboard the Shuttles Discovery (STS-41D) and Atlantis (STS-27 & 36) before retiring from NASA and the Air Force in 1990.

Mullane has been inducted into the International Space Hall of Fame and is the recipient of many awards, including the Air Force Distinguished Flying Cross, Legion of Merit and the NASA Space Flight Medal.

Since his retirement from NASA, Colonel Mullane has written an award-winning children`s book, Liftoff! An Astronaut`s Dream, and a popular space-fact book, Do Your Ears Pop In Space? His memoir, Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut, has been reviewed in the New York Times and on the Jon Stewart Daily Show. It has also been featured on Barnes and Noble`s 2010 recommended summer reading list.

Mullane has held a lifelong passion for hiking and summited Africa`s highest peak, Mt. Kilimanjaro, on July 23, 2010.

Colonel Mullane has established himself as an acclaimed professional speaker on the topics of teamwork, leadership and safety. He has educated, entertained, inspired and thrilled tens of thousands of people from every walk of business and government with his incredibly unique programs.

Publications

Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut

On February 1, 1978 the first group of space shuttle astronauts, 29 men and 6 women, were introduced to the world. Among them would be history makers, including the first American woman and the first African American in space. This assembly of astronauts would carry NASA through the most tumultuous years of the space shuttle program. Four would die on Challenger.

USAF Colonel Mike Mullane was a member of this astronaut class and Riding Rockets is his story - told with a candor never before seen in an astronaut`s memoir. Mullane strips the heroic veneer from the astronaut corps and paints them as they are... human. His tales of arrested development among military flyboys working with feminist pioneers and post-doc scientists are sometimes bawdy, often hilarious, and always entertaining.

Mullane is brutally honest in his criticism of a NASA leadership whose bungling would precipitate the Challenger disaster.

Riding Rockets is a story of life in all its fateful uncertainty; of the impact of a family tragedy on a nine-year old boy; of the revelatory effect of a machine called Sputnik; and of the life-steering powers of lust, love, and marriage. It is a story of the human experience that will resonate long after the call of, "Wheel stop."

Titles

Countdown To Teamwork
Countdown To Teamwork is a team-building /leadership program in which Colonel Mullane motivates the audience on their practice of these fundamentals of teamwork: guarding against a "normalization of deviance", responsibility, trust, courageous self-leadership, and courageous team leadership. This program is applicable to all teams everywhere. It has thrilled and inspired personnel in sales, manufacturing, production, safety ... in ALL areas of company operations. It has been cheered by managers and blue-collar workers, by union and non-union teams. It has been enjoyed by men and women from every corner of corporate America ... from perfume sales teams to nuclear power plant safety teams; from insurance company teams to medical equipment manufacturers; from beverage producers to record label teams.

Countdown To Safety
In his program, "Countdown To Safety", Astronaut Mullane delivers a powerful message on the individual`s role in keeping themselves and their teams safe in hazardous environments. Mullane introduces this subject with a recount of his own near-death experience in a fighter jet, when he failed to speak up about an unsafe situation. He assumed another crewmember, with more flying time, "knew best" about the safety of their operations. In other words, at a critical moment in a hazardous operation, Mullane surrendered his responsibility for safety to someone else. He became a "safety passenger". The result was his (and the pilot`s) narrow escape from death during their ejection from the crashing jet. The destruction of a multi-million dollar plane might have been avoided if Mullane had maintained his "safety presence" and voiced his assessment on the dangers of the pilot`s decision. Instead, he assumed he didn`t "count", that the pilot knew best.

The Lighter Side Of Spaceflight
A wildly entertaining and educational program on the astronaut experience.