Becoming an Astronaut

The Mercury 7 On April 9, 1959, reporters and news media crammed into the ballroom of the Dolley Madison House in Washington—the location of NASA Headquarters at that time—to learn the names of the first American astronauts who came to be known as the Mercury 7. Public Information Director Walter Bonney kicked off the announcement […]

NASA astronaut Nicole Mann and U.S. Representative Zoe Lofgren talk with students and families at Youth Alliance, a community organization in Hollister, California, on Jan. 5.  Mann, who was born in another small California community, spoke about her parents’ work as an auto mechanic and a manicurist and her own path to becoming a colonel in the […]