Activists Around the World: Colonel Nicole Aunapu Mann

Today we talk about rising star Colonel Nicole Aunapu Mann, the first Native American woman to go to space.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to Stephe
never told your production if I hurried you, and welcome
to me, apparently having a locked of lower voice, like
I just kind of shocked myself of getting real sexy

(00:28):
all slash kind of sick. So apologies for the sound content, Uh,
not apologizing for the scattered nous of my mind because
that's constant and that's like a personality trait, Right, Annie,
I don't know. I mean, I guess you're so nice.
But back to what we were saying, welcome to another

(00:50):
installment of activists around the world, women around the world.
What are women doing around the world? All kinds of things,
And today we wanted to change it up a bit.
We are still celebrating Native American Heritage Month as it
is coming to an end, even though we will never
stop talking about the amazing indigenous advocates around the world.
So but yes, in the United States, it is in

(01:13):
the month of November. We're coming close to the end
of November. Oh my god, it's about to be December. Yeah,
I know, I know. Anyway, um, and we are talking
about the amazing career of NASA astronaut Colonel Nicole on
a pu man and I'm really kind of excited. Annie.
Have you ever had any dreams of going to space

(01:33):
or being an astronaut? Yes? Yes. In fact, I could
send you a screenshot of my to do list on
it is go to space. Um, my to do list
is very ambitious, I do. I I was very afraid
of space for a while because, as I have said,
I had a a prank, a very effective prank played

(01:56):
on me as a child that made me terrified of
aliens in space in general, like, very very scared. It
wasn't until I didn't get over until college. Um, so
you know I didn't want to then, even though I
did really love space gamp, which I went to in
sixth grade. But now I think it was after college
I was like, you know what, I'd really like to

(02:17):
go to space. However, I do not want to be
in the kind of rich billionaire class of space going.
That's not like brand I want. I would you pay
if you had the money, because I know, like you
can pay a certain amount. What was it like several
million dollars to go to space? It's one of those things.

(02:38):
Can't I just go to space? Yeah? Yeah, he did.
It was kind of upsetting about was not the point
of it. And also how Jeff Bezos kind of treated
the whole thing was not great, but that's not surprising.
So it's also like we talked about this with at Arctica.
It's one of those things where I'm like, I want
to do it, but I also don't want to. I
want to do it responsibly, and I'm not sure there's

(02:59):
a way to do that for the environment. So the yeah,
basically I want to, I probably never will. Yeah, so
if they decide that we need to move to Mars,
you're going to go. I thought about this a lot too.
I don't know, I'm talriing about that. I would love
to go. I'm also terrified because I think that's like
it would be very difficult and you have to start

(03:21):
a lot of things that I don't think people realize
from scratch, And there is a part of me that's
like I really don't want to. I feel like again
going back to that rich billionaire thing of like we
can almost save this planet, will go to this planet,
Like I don't like that whole mindset, but I might go.
I would go. Okay, Okay, I have so many more
space related questions, but I'm going to stop because it's

(03:42):
a fascinating topic. I have never necessarily wanted to be
an astronaut. I think I knew as a child that
I was an underachiever and that all that science and
math was not going to be my life. So no,
but it is fascinating to me. I we talked about
how we love planetariums and talking about the best space

(04:03):
I don't know, did you ever go to the space
museum or space camp? Yeah? Did you? Did you talk
about this? I just said it. Oh my god, I'm sick.
I'm sorry. No, it's okay. I did, but you you
didn't go? I did not, man, I absolutely blanked out. Yeah,
so I missed out from that. We went to planetariums

(04:24):
just never. Yeah, those were great too. I love those.
And I went home for this past holiday weekend. And
I'm not sure if I've ever said this before. I
think I have, but I have ever, I believe ever
a thousand. I think more of those gold in the
dark stars in my room on the ceiling, and I
would just like stare at them, like this is so beautiful,
Like looking at stars is one of my very favorite things. Yeah,
you have a little light setting for it right, I do.

(04:47):
I have two projectors to galaxy projectors now, adore it,
and I'm already planning like my chill New Year's where
I read fan fiction and half at all a month ahead.
I love that. But you know, I think it's not
uncommon when you were talking about sitting and looking and
making your own space look like space, because a lot

(05:10):
of the astronauts her interview talked about this, including Colonel Man,
who talked about this as a child wanting to go
to space, but before we get there. Colonel Man is
a member of the Round Valley Indian tribe, and she's
become the first Native American woman in space as of
October of this year. Um Colonel Mann grew up in California,
graduating from Rancho Co Tait High School, moving on to

(05:32):
attend the U. S. Naval Academy, graduating with a Bachelor
of Science degree in mechanical engineering, and she went on
to get her master's degree from Stanford University in a
mechanical engineering um and a couple of fun facts, she
was a second lieutenant in the Marine Corps as well
as she played a soccer for the Naval Midshipment as
a defender and speaking of her military career, in two

(05:55):
thousand one, she attended flight training at the Naval Air
Station in Pensacola, Florida. In two thousand three, she earned
her Wings of Gold as a naval aviator and in
two thousand four she started her aviation career with the
Thunderbolts of v m F A TOFT one in South Carolina,
and after two deployments, Colonel Mann went on to become
a project officer, working in flight test, carrier stabilities and more.

(06:17):
And in two thousand twelve she was selected as an
astronaut candidate, accumulating over two thousand, five hundred flight hours
and twenty five types of aircraft, two hundred carrier arrestments,
and forty seven combat missions. And that's according to her
NASA biography. And it was in that she was selected
as a member of the twenty one NASA Astronaut Class.

(06:38):
She completed her rigorous training in Since then she has
helped um on development for the Rion spacecraft, space launch
system and the exploration ground systems as the T thirty
Safety and Training Officer and as the Assistant to the
Chief Astronaut and Exploration And it was in October fifth, two,

(07:12):
which was a reschedule. By the way, Colonel Man launched
as the commander of NASA's space X Crew F to
the International Space Station on the space X Crew Dragon spacecraft,
making her the first Native woman to be in space.
And by the way, the first state of person a
man was sent twenty years prior um so at this
time the crew is supposed to remain on the station

(07:35):
for six months um And just recently, space X launch
supplies to the International Space Station, including a Thanksgiving mill
that had spicy green beans and some desserts including candy corn,
items like solar arrays, a dwarf tomato seeds, and other
types of science experiments. The space X program has apparently
been sending supplies of fresh vegetables which they can't get

(07:56):
because of the types of mills on the space station
include the lettuce and chilies and now red robin tomatoes.
They said it should come out, it should be able
to be harvested in spring, So I'm gonna be there
for quite a while. Yes, And if you're interested in
the science of food and space, you can check out
the other podcast I'm on Saver because we talked about
that all the time. We love that stuff fascinating. In

(08:19):
a recent MPR interview, Colonel Man spoke about inspiring youth
to break down barriers, saying, these young women, maybe natives,
maybe people from different backgrounds that realize that they have
these opportunities and that potentially these barriers that used to
be there are starting to be broken down, and so
hopefully that will inspire that younger generation, and then went
on to say, never discount yourself. If you don't go

(08:41):
after a dream or a goal, and if you don't try,
you're never going to make it. You know, pursue the
topic in school, ask for help, meet people that have
done that job to learn more about it. You'll grow
so much more as a child into an adult, and
your interest will vary quite a bit. And so it's
exciting to take this opportunity to chase down all of
those dreams and never scount yourself. Yeah, I love that.

(09:02):
And uh. Though she is quite busy right now in space,
she's also training for the Artemis program, which is a
robotic and human moon exploration program, and is currently working
to be the first woman on the Moon, which is
scheduled for so we'll have to come back and talk
about that, And of course with all of that, she
has many more accolades, including the seventeen Jerry Yeagly Award

(09:25):
for Excessional Personal Achievement and was inducted into the Academic
All American Hall of Fame, and of course some several
several medals for her time in the military. UM and
just a fun fact if you wanted to know, because
I'm going to tell you anyways, she was able to
take some personal items with her on this travel, including
a dream catcher that her mother had given her a

(09:46):
while back and some other personal trinkets. So I thought
that was really sweet. Yeah, that's awesome, very very cool,
very very inspiring and can't wait to check back in.
Can't wait to check back in on this one. UM.
As a always, if you have suggestions, listeners for anyone
or anything we should talk about in this segment, please
let us know. You can emails that stuff in your

(10:07):
mom stuff at I hurt mea dot com. You can
find us on Twitter at mom stub podcast or Instagram
at stuff One Never Told You. Thanks as always to
our super producer Christina. Thank you, Christina, Yes, and thanks
to you for listening Stuff One Never Told You. Protection
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