Scott Altman

Personal

Born in Lincoln, Illinois, Scott is married to the former Jill Shannon Loomer of Tucson, Arizona. They have three children, the second oldest of whom, Alex, graduated Rice University in Houston, Texas in May 2009. Hometown is Pekin, Illinois, where his parents, Fred and Sharon Altman, currently reside. The Pekin District 108 school board voted to honor the former astronaut by naming Scott Altman Primary School in 2010. Scott's sister Sarah Beardsley is the publisher of Venus Zine, a women's music, DIY and culture multi-media company. His callsigns have been "D-Bear" and Scooter. He is a brother of the Sigma Chi Fraternity.

Education

Military career

Commissioned as an Ensign in the United States Navy in August 1981, and received his Naval Aviator wings in February 1983. As a member of Fighter Squadron 51 at (then) NAS Miramar, Altman completed two deployments to the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean flying the F-14A Tomcat. In August 1987, he was selected for the Naval Postgraduate School-Test Pilot School Co-op program and graduated with Test Pilot School Class 97 in June 1990 as a Distinguished Graduate. After graduation, he spent the next two years as a test pilot working on various F-14 projects. Altman then took the new F-14D on its first operational deployment with VF-31 Tomcatters, where he served as maintenance officer and later operations officer. He was awarded the Air Medal for his role as a strike leader flying over Southern Iraq in support of Operation Southern Watch. Shortly following his return from this six-month deployment, he was selected for the NASA astronaut program. He has logged over 7,000 flight hours in more than 40 types of aircraft.

He also performed many of the aerial stunts in the film Top Gun, and was the pilot that "flipped the bird" at the enemy Mig pilot (played by Robert F. Willard).

NASA career

Selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in December 1994, Altman reported to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in March 1995. He completed a year of training and was initially assigned to work technical aspects of orbiter landing and roll out issues for the Astronaut Office Vehicle Systems Branch. He was the pilot on STS-90 (1998) and STS-106 (2000), and was the mission commander on STS-109 (2002) and STS-125 (2009). A veteran of four space flights, Altman has logged over 40 days in space. Altman retired from NASA in September 2010 to join ASRC Federal Research and Technology Solutions in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Spaceflights

STS-90 Neurolab (April 17 to May 3, 1998). During the 16-day Spacelab flight the seven person crew aboard Space Shuttle Columbia served as both experiment subjects and operators for 26 individual life science experiments focusing on the effects of microgravity on the brain and nervous system.

STS-106 Atlantis (September 8–20, 2000). During the 12-day mission, the crew successfully prepared the International Space Station for the arrival of the first permanent crew. Additionally, he handflew two complete flyarounds of the station after undocking.

STS-109 Columbia (March 1–12, 2002). STS-109 was the fourth Hubble Space Telescope (HST) servicing mission. The STS-109 crew successfully upgraded the Hubble Space Telescope leaving it with a new power unit, a new camera and new solar arrays. HST servicing and upgrade was accomplished by four crewmembers during a total of 5 EVAs in 5 consecutive days. The space walkers were assisted by crewmates inside Space Shuttle Columbia. STS-109 orbited the Earth 165 times, and covered 3.9 million miles in over 262 hours, culminating in a night landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

STS-125 Atlantis (May 11–24, 2009). STS-125 was the fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. Atlantis carried two new instruments to the telescope, the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Wide Field Camera 3. The mission also replaced a Fine Guidance Sensor, six gyroscopes, and two battery unit modules to allow the telescope to continue to function at least through 2014. The crew also installed new thermal blanket insulating panels to provide improved thermal protection, and a soft-capture mechanism that would aid in the safe de-orbiting of the telescope by an unmanned spacecraft at the end of its operational lifespan. The mission also carried an IMAX camera and the crew documented the progress of the mission for an upcoming IMAX film.

Organizations

Awards and honors

Top Gun

In a NASA interview prior to his 2000 spaceflight, Scott Altman commented on his role as an F-14 pilot involved in the filming of Top Gun:

Well, Top Gun was a real thrill. I still remember that so vividly. The word was going around town that Hollywood was coming to Miramar, where I was stationed, and they were going to do a movie, and we were all kind of excited. My squadron had just gotten back from a seven-and-a-half-month cruise about a week and a half before, so our airplanes were at home, we were available, we weren't too highly tasked. And it turned out they picked my squadron to supply the F-14s.

Then the skipper got together and tried to pick four guys that he thought, were mature enough, I guess, to handle, you know, the capability that they were being given in working with the movie, and all the things that were required. And the director wanted to have a small cadre of people that he could work with so you develop an understanding of what the movie folks want versus what we can do and how to try and balance those two requirements.

The flying was incredible. You know, most Navy pilots don't get to buzz the tower like in the movie – if you did you could just peel your wings off and, throw 'em at the door because you probably wouldn't be flying anymore – but, since it was Hollywood, you know, they wanted the scene. I had to buzz the tower. And, of course, they wanted nine different takes – so we did it nine times!