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 and logged 356 hours in space 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? Colonel Mullane’s memoir, Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut (Scribner, hardcover) is also available in bookstores and Amazon.com. Mullane has also served as a host for Inside Space, a nationally syndicated cable television program of the USA Network. His wonderfully entertaining presentations of Stories From Space have been eagerly solicited by organizations of all kinds - from Fortune 500 companies to professional associations; from societies to schools and universities.

As a professional speaker, Colonel Mullane has thrilled tens of thousands of adults and a half-million children with his inspirational, motivational and humorous descriptions of the astronaut experience.

Publications

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
An inspirational and motivational teamwork/leadership program.

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