Indianz.Com > News > Cronkite News: First Native woman in space shares unique journey
The first Indigenous woman in space never planned on becoming an astronaut
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Cronkite News
AVONDALE, Arizona — Estrella Mountain Community College celebrated Women’s History Month by hosting an event on March 27. Marine Col. Nicole Mann, a member of the Wailacki tribe of the Round Valley Indian Tribes, was invited to speak at the event. She shared her unorthodox journey to becoming an astronaut.
Mann is the first female Indigenous astronaut and only the second Indigenous person to go to space.
Early on as a child, Mann said she knew she wanted to serve in the military but wasn’t sure which path to take.
“The idea of being an astronaut hadn’t even entered my mind at this point. I mean I had never met an astronaut before. I didn’t know exactly what they did. It seemed like something that other people did from somewhere else, right? But, it’s not something for me,” Mann said at the community college event.
![Nicole Mann](https://indianz.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/17/NicoleMann2.jpg)
![Nicole Mann](https://indianz.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/17/NicoleMann1.jpg)
Self doubt
After researching the career in 2009, Mann said she began her three years as a test pilot on the F/A-18 where she would push the jet and its weapons at or past their designed limits.
During this time, Mann said she got married and pregnant with her son. It was while she was pregnant that Mann saw that NASA was accepting applicants for the next astronaut class.
“I have to be honest with you, at that time I thought, ‘Well, I mean that would have been great years ago maybe, right? It was fun being a fighter pilot. It was fun being a test pilot. But now, I’m going to be a mom. It’s time for me to move on, things need to change,’” Mann said.
Mann said she remembers coming home and telling her husband about NASA selecting applicants but she wasn’t going to apply. She said her husband looked at her like she was crazy and he asked her why she shouldn’t apply and she responded “because we’re pregnant.”
“He goes, ‘Oh my God, you can never give up on this dream. If you don’t apply, then you’re never going to make it. You’re going to discount yourself. And you’re never going to know,’” Mann said.
![Nicole Mann](https://indianz.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/17/NicoleMann3.jpg)
![Nicole Mann](https://indianz.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/17/NicoleMann4.jpg)
A mom and a professional
“My husband was right. You can be a mom and a professional and have a family at the same time,” Mann said.
Her testimonial of being a mother and a professional resonated with Raquel Nezzie who is a single mother, an Estrella Mountain Community College student and the vice president of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society chapter at the college.
Nezzie called it “very inspirational and motivational.”
Sharon Stefan, a math faculty member at EMCC and director of the school’s STEM Center of Excellence, said it was really important for students to hear Mann say she was not sure how her life path was going to turn out. Stefan said students who come to the community college do “not necessarily having their full life planned out, but they do have ambitions and desires and dreams just like her.”
“And to hear her share her story of this wasn’t in the plans. Like, ‘I didn’t think being an astronaut was an option for me.’ And the fact that she shared that when she found out she was pregnant and like she was going to be a mother, I think that spoke a lot to our nontraditional students that have duties like family,” Stefan said.
For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.
Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News. It is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
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