1967 West Point grad was in town for 55th reunion
Retired Army Col. Mike Mullane is an astronaut who has been to space, who served a distinguished military career, who has published books and who has appeared on national television. But last week, he did something he’s never done before … spoke at the Highland Falls Intermediate School.
Mullane was in town for his 55th class reunion at West Point — he graduated in 1967. He carved a bit of time out of the trip to speak at the HFIS as part of the West Point Association of Graduates program CONNECT.
While his interactive talk — he constantly showed photos and videos of his career and time in space on three Space Shuttle missions — was about what he has accomplished, his real message to the students was seven-fold.
Several times throughout the hour he repeated his ‘steps for success’:
• Do your best
• Dream big
• Be tenacious
• Don’t be afraid of failure
• Take care of your body
• Make education a priority
• Learn to be a team player
Mullane explained to the youngsters why he believes those seven things are the key to doing big things with your life, and credited West Point with teaching him those things.
“My dad was a pilot, and I wanted to fly like he did,” Mullane said. “At age 12 I decided I wanted to be an astronaut.”
That’s the ‘dream big’ part of the story. The harder part, he explained, was getting there. Mullane showed photos from his high school year of the places he wasn’t — he wasn’t, he said, a top scholar or athlete or the most popular of students.
“Kids, I couldn’t get into the Air Force Academy, which is where I wanted to go,” he said. “My grades weren’t good enough.”
But West Point took a chance on him — “I was a third alternate, but I got in”.
And what he did have as he progressed through the Military Academy was “an abundance of tenacity”.
He became a space shuttle astronaut in 1978.
It was stories from his three trips — totaling about two weeks of his life — that enthralled the students. Particularly … stories about how you eat and go to the bathroom in space, what he could see out of the windows of the Space Shuttle, and weightlessness.
“It really is kind of weird,” he said of weightlessness, as he showed how astronauts have to drink water through a bag with a straw to get the liquid into their mouths.
“And if you’re a girl in outer space, prepare to have a bad hair day,” he said, showing video of one of fellow astronauts, a female, with her loose hair standing straight up.
The entire second half of Mullane’s talk to the students was a question and answer session, where the students had much to ask.
He was straight with them, telling them there is still much about outer space that no one knows (one question was: “are their monsters in space?” — “I never saw any,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean there aren’t creatures living on other planets”), and that there are some things that he experienced that even he doesn’t really understand — like the concept of time travel.
When asked what it felt like just before the shuttle blasted off each time, Mullane quickly responded “fear and joy”.
“It’s like when you’re waiting for a roller coaster to start, you’re scared and happy at the same time,” he said. He added that for astronauts the first eight or so minutes are the most dangerous, once they get into orbit, he recalled, “there was usually cheering”.
Another student commented that, from the videos Mullane showed, astronauts look like they are doing gymnastics.
“Even I could do flips in space,” he laughed, “and I’m no gymnast.”
After a final reminder of what he believes everyone needs to do to be successful, the students were dismissed, heading off for snacks and some time on the playground, but Mullane stuck around the HFIS auditorium for a few more minutes to talk with some of the more inquisitive students. As they left, he noted that he was thrilled to see that most of the children who had stayed after were girls. “That’s great to see,” he said.
For more on Mullane’s life and career, www.mikemullane.com.
