Mike Anderson

Payload Commander Mike Anderson was born in Platsburgh, New York and grew up in Cheney, Washington. He was selected as an astronaut in 1995. He flew in space first on the STS-89 mission to Russia's Mir space station.

As a child he grew up with one lifetime goal - to become a pilot and fly in space and everything he did was to achieve that goal. Mike grew up on Fairchild AFB in Washington. He said, "My dad was in the Air Force. And being an Air Force brat and living on Air Force bases, I was always around airplanes. And, that was something else that really captured my imagination, just seeing airplanes taking off and landing every day, and flying over the house, and making all of this noise just was a fascinating thing to me as a kid. So, my interest in aviation and my interest in science were, I guess, two of the things I really latched on to, and two things that I just couldn't shake as I grew older."

Mike was one of three black kids in a class of 200 students and encountered his share of prejudice while growing up. His friends recall that he avoided confrontations and walked away from bigoted remarks realizing he couldn't do anything about it.

Anderson had an unusual background for an astronaut. Most astronauts have either a hard science background (biology, physics, or medicine) or an operations background (flight engineer, pilot, spacecraft operations). Anderson had a bit of both - he studied physics and astronomy on college, but in the Air Force Anderson had a flight test background as an electrical engineer and pilot.

On Anderson's STS-89 flight he was the flight engineer assisting commander Terry Wilcutt and pilot Joe Edwards for launch and landing and the rendezvous. For the STS-107 mission Anderson was the payload commander, responsible for operating many of the scientific experiments.

The STS-89 mission visited Russia's Mir space station, exchanging long duration American astronauts Dave Wolf and Andy Thomas.

• Mike Anderson talks to author Philip Chien about his education and work experience and the blood draws.
• Mike talks to the author about becoming the first African-American astronaut on Mir and being a role model.
• Mike Anderson's official NASA bio.

Mike Anderson (far left) on his high school tennis team	Anderson's senior yearbook shows his giant afro	Anderson laughs at his yearbook photo with classmate Mike McKinley while teacher Lawson VanKuren watches	Cheney High School as it looks today	Anderson in his physics class at the University of Washington
Several 1995 astronauts including Rick, KC, and Mike in NASA's KC-135	Mike Anderson's official NASA portrait	The STS-89 crew portrait	The STS-89 crew poses with an M113	The STS-89 crew poses next to their space shuttle
STS-89 launches at night with Mike Anderson onboard	Anderson operates the CEBAS experiment on his first spaceflight	Endeavour approaches Mir on the STS-89 mission	The STS-89 and Mir 24 crews	A rare photo of the STS-89 crew with their school pendants
Anderson poses with a Creighton University pendant on the STS-89 mission	Mike Anderson and Bonnie Dunbar pose with a University of Washington banner	STS-89 lands at the Kennedy Space Center just before sunset	Endeavour lands at the Kennedy Space Center, completing the STS-89 mission	Endeavour at sunset on the runway after the completion of the STS-89 mission
A happy crew after the STS-89 landing	Anderson asked the Buffalo Soldiers museum for something to fly on STS-107	The Buffalo Soldiers museum provided Mike Anderson with a medallion to fly on STS-107

Back to Crew

Home

copyright 2005 Philip Chien All Rights Reserved