Michael James "Mike" Massimino is an American engineer and former NASA
astronaut who is now a professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia
University and the senior advisor of space programs at the Intrepid Sea, Air
& Space Museum. Massimino is a veteran of two Space Shuttle missions, both of
which serviced the Hubble Space Telescope, including the historic final
repair mission. Personal life
Massimino was born August 19, 1962 in Oceanside, New York. His hometown is
Franklin Square, New York. He is married. He enjoys baseball, family
activities, home improvement projects, camping, and coaching kids' sports.
Massimino appeared as himself in the hit TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory launching
aboard a Russian Soyuz to the International Space Station . Massimino
also made a guest appearance in one of the video lectures of An Introduction to
Interactive Programming in Python, a MOOC offered by Rice University. He is
also a regular contributor to Neil deGrasse Tyson's Startalk Radio podcast.
Massimino has a son and daughter. Education
Massimino graduated from H. Frank Carey Junior-Senior High School in Franklin
Square, New York in 1980. He went on to attend Columbia University, graduating
with a Bachelor of Science in industrial engineering in 1984. He then attended
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating with a Master of
Science in mechanical engineering and a Master of Science in technology and
public policy in 1988. He continued his education at MIT, earning a Degree of
Mechanical Engineer in 1990 and a Doctor of Philosophy in mechanical engineering
in 1992. Organizations
MIT Alumni Association Columbia University Alumni Association
Association of Space Explorers. Awards and honors
NASA Space Flight Medals NASA Graduate Student Researchers
Program Fellowship Experience
Upon completing his B.S. degree from Columbia, Massimino worked for IBM as a
systems engineer in New York City from 1984 until 1986. In 1986 he entered
graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he
conducted research on human operator control of space robotics systems in the
MIT Mechanical Engineering Department's Human-machine systems Laboratory. His
work resulted in the awarding of two patents. While a student at MIT he
worked during the Summer of 1987 as a general engineer at NASA Headquarters in
the Office of Aeronautics and Space Technology, during the summers of 1988
and 1989 as a research fellow in the Man-Systems Integration Branch at the
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, and during the summer of 1990 as a visiting
research engineer at the German Aerospace Center in Oberpfaffenhofen,
Germany. After graduating from MIT in 1992, Massimino worked at McDonnell
Douglas Aerospace in Houston, Texas as a research engineer where he developed
laptop computer displays to assist operators of the Space Shuttle remote
manipulator system. These displays included the Manipulator Position
Display, which was evaluated on STS-69. From 1992 to 1995 he was also an adjunct
assistant professor in the Mechanical Engineering & Material Sciences
Department at Rice University, where he taught feedback control of mechanical
systems. In September 1995, Massimino joined the faculty of the Georgia
Institute of Technology as an assistant professor in the School of Industrial
and Systems Engineering. At Georgia Tech he taught human-machine systems
engineering classes and conducted research on human-machine interfaces for
space and aircraft systems in the Center for Human-Machine Systems Research, and
is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Georgia Tech. He has
published papers in technical journals and in the proceedings of technical
conferences. In 2011, Massimino co-hosted season three of National
Geographic Channel's Known Universe documentary series along with Sigrid
Close, Andy Howell, David E. Kaplan, and Steve Jacobs.
NASA career Selected as an astronaut candidate by
NASA in May 1996, Massimino reported to the Johnson Space Center in August 1996.
He completed two years of initial training and evaluation and qualified
for flight assignment as a mission specialist. Prior to his first space
flight assignment, Massimino served in the Astronaut Office Robotics Branch,
and in the Astronaut Office Extravehicular Activity Branch. He has
served as a CAPCOM in Mission Control and performed other technical tasks in
the Astronaut Office CAPCOM Branch. Currently he is on loan from the Johnson
Space Center and serves as a visiting professor at Columbia University
teaching a course on human spaceflight. On July 29, 2014, Massimino announced
that he would be leaving NASA to pursue a teaching career at Columbia
University, in New York. Spaceflight experience
STS-109 Columbia. STS-109 was the fourth Hubble Space Telescope servicing
mission. The crew of STS-109 successfully upgraded the Hubble Space
Telescope leaving it with a new power unit, a new camera, and new solar
arrays. STS-109 set a record for spacewalk time with 35 hours and 55
minutes during 5 spacewalks. Massimino performed two spacewalks totaling 14
hours and 46 minutes. STS-109 orbited the Earth 165 times, and covered 4.5
million statute miles in over 262 hours and 10 minutes.
STS-125 Atlantis was the final Hubble servicing mission by the Space Shuttle.
Atlantis landed in California after stormy weather prevented the shuttle
from landing at NASA's home base in Florida as previously planned. During
the mission Massimino became the first person to use Twitter in space. Rather
than using the service directly while on-orbit, however, Massimino composed
his messages and shared them with Mission Control which then posted the
messages via the Internet to Twitter. Massimino's public updates about his
training for the STS-125 mission began April 3, 2009 and he remains active on
the service as of July 2011. Filmography
In the PBS children's program Sid the Science Kid, Michael Massimino appeared
as himself in an episode focused on scientists. In the CBS sitcom The Big
Bang Theory, Massimino appears in several episodes as a guest star, as a
fictionalized version of himself. References
This article incorporates public domain material from websites or documents of
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
External links Mike Massimino on Twitter
NASA biography Spacefacts biography of Michael J.
Massimino Michael J. Massimino at the Internet
Movie Database Interview with Mike Massimino about
accuracy of movie Gravity