Nicole Aunapu Mann and her husband Travis Mann are very happy together. Her happy marriage led to the birth of a son.
Nicole Aunapu Mann works for NASA as a test pilot. She is a respected member of the Wailacki of Round Valley Indian Tribes in California. Last week, she became the first person from her tribe to go into space on NASA’s SpaceX Crew-5 mission.
Mann is a pilot for the F/A-18 Hornet. He went to Stanford University, the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, and the U.S. Naval Academy before becoming a pilot. In the same way, she finished her training to be an astronaut in 2015.
The test pilot has flown more than 2,500 hours in 25 different kinds of planes and landed 200 times on a carrier. She has also flown 47 missions in Iraq and Afghanistan where she had to fight. In August 2018, she was put in charge of Boe-CFT, which was the first test flight with a crew for the Boeing CST-100 Starliner.
On Wednesday, October 5, 2022, Nicole left for her first trip into space. She was the first Native American woman to go to space after this. On their 230-foot-tall (70-meter-tall) SpaceX rocket, the NASA astronaut was joined by her three crewmates.
CNN says that Nicole and her team will do more than 200 new scientific experiments during their five-month stay on the floating space laboratory. Their research is meant to improve life on Earth and get people ready for trips beyond low-Earth orbit.
Travis Mann is married to Nicole Aunapu Mann
Nicole Aunapu Mann is married to Travis R. Mann, who loves her very much. Nicole is the first Native American woman to go to space, which makes him very proud.
No one knows when they met, but they have known each other since 2002, when they were both in flight school. In the end, they started dating, and their love turned into a beautiful marriage. In 2009, they said their wedding vows, and they recently celebrated their 13th wedding anniversary.
Her partner is in his fifties right now. On the other hand, this year Nicole turned 45. She was born on June 27, 1977, making her a Cancer according to the Zodiac sign.
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The husband of Nicole is in the U.S. Navy.
Travis R. Mann is a Navy lieutenant commander and is married to Nicole Aunapu Mann. He is also an F/A-18 pilot, and he met Nicole in 2002 at a flight school.
Mann is a colonel in the Marine Corps, just like her husband. NASA’s website says that she joined the military in 1999 as a second lieutenant.
Two years later, she started flying training. During her two deployments, she helped with combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. She was then given a job as an F/A-18 Hornet and Super Hornet test pilot.
Mann and her husband have a son together
In 2013, Nicole Aunapu Mann and Travis R. Mann had their first child, a son. NASA called her up the same year.
After giving birth, Mann didn’t fly for four months. She said that having a child is even more exciting than flying faster than the speed of sound. She has also said that becoming a mom is one of the best things she has ever done.
After being chosen for NASA’s astronaut corps in 2013, Mann had to wait years before he was sent on a mission. After she was moved to Crew-5, she had an intense 18-month training program that included practicing spacewalks underwater and learning Russian so she could talk better with the cosmonauts.
Even though Mann works, she spends a lot of time with her almost 10-year-old son. She had told National Geographic magazine before that she and her child often went outside to look at the moon. So she hoped that one day her dear son would be able to see her moonwalk.
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Meet Nicole Aunapu Mann’s Proud Parents
Victoria and Howard Anunapu are the parents of Nicole Aunapu Mann.
Her parents are very proud of their daughter’s accomplishment because she is the first Native American woman to reach space. Not much has been said about her parents. But it is known that she came from a long line of people who served in the military.
Mann said in an interview that when she was a little girl, her mother gave her a dream catcher made of a wooden hoop with thread webs. The thing will go with her into space.
She told NPR, “My mother did give me this dream catcher a long time ago.” “And that is always, you know, just a little bit of a memory; I think of my family back home.”
She grew up in the California town of Penngrove
Mann and her son Travis live in Houston, but the rest of her family and her fan club still live in Northern California.
Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park, California, gave her a diploma in 1995. In the end, she got a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1999.
Nicole got her Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, in 2001. Her degree was in Fluid Mechanics.
She learned to fly at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola before joining a flight squadron in Virginia. Mann was sent to Iraq twice during the Iraq War. When he got back to the US, he went to the US Naval Test Pilot School.
Mann was one of eight astronaut candidates chosen by NASA in June 2013 to be part of the 21st astronaut class. This class would first focus on running the space station before considering missions to the moon, near-Earth asteroids, or even Mars.
Her grandfather left Estonia to come to America
Helmuth Aunapu, Nicole’s grandfather, left Estonia when he was young and finally settled in the United States. He joined the U.S. Army and served as a military engineer during World War II. He worked his way up to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Howard Mann, Nicole Mann’s dad, was only 11 years old when her grandfather died, so Nicole Mann never got to meet him.
Nicole Mann told the Estonian newspaper Postimees in 2020, “Unfortunately, I never got to meet him, and I don’t know much about the Estonian roots of our family.”
Mann said that after she gets back from space, she might go to Estonia, which is where her grandfather was born. She said: “I know we have relatives in Estonia. My older sister is just as proud of our Estonian roots as I am. I hope we can go on a trip together “in a 2020 interview.
Nicole is happy with her background
Mann is seen as an American Indian by the Round Valley Indian Tribes.
She grew up in Northern California and is a registered member of the Wailacki tribe, which is part of the Round Valley post-colonial reserve. Several Native American tribes were forced to live there in the middle of the 1800s.
According to CNN, Mann told Indian Country Today in August, “A lot of my extended family still lives in that area.” “A few weeks ago, we all got together for a family reunion. So I think it’s really important that we keep making these connections.”
How much money she will have in 2022
The amount of money Nicole Aunapu Mann has is thought to be in the millions.
Mann has made a lot of money by working for NASA and serving her country. She has also worked for the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the Tailhook Association, the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School Alumni Association, and the United States Naval Academy Alumni Association.
According to Business Insider, the government uses a pay scale to figure out how much astronauts make each year. Most astronauts start in either GS-12 or GS-13, which is a grade. At the moment, a GS-12 starts at $65,140 per year, and a GS-13 can make up to $100,701 per year.
So, Mann and other astronauts make between $66,167 and $161,141 per year.
NASA.gov says that military astronaut candidates must be assigned to the Johnson Space Center and be on active duty in order to get pay, benefits, leave, and other military perks.
Nicole has won a lot of awards over the course of her career. She has two Commendation Medals from the Navy and Marine Corps and two Achievement Medals from the Navy and Marine Corps. In 2017, she was also inducted into the Academic All-American Hall of Fame and given the Jerry Yeagley Award for Exceptional Personal Achievement.
Mann could be one of the first women to walk on the moon. She hopes that by being a role model, more Native Americans and women will decide to become astronauts in the future.
Early life, family history, and schooling
Nicole Victoria Aunapu Mann was born on June 27, 1977, in Penngrove, California. She was raised there by her parents, Howard and Victoria Aunapu. Helmuth Aunapu, her grandfather, moved to the US from Estonia in the 1920s and later worked as an engineer for the US military. She is a member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes and comes from the Wailaki tribe.
Mann went to Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park, California, from which he graduated in 1995. She went to the US Naval Academy and got a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from there in 1999. She was a defender for the Navy Midshipmen women’s soccer team. In 75 games, she scored one goal and had four assists. After being given a commission in the US Marine Corps, she went to graduate school at Stanford University and got a Master of Science in mechanical engineering with a focus on fluid mechanics.
Job in the military
Mann went to The Basic School and started flight training at NAS Pensacola after he finished graduate school. She got her Naval Aviator wings in 2002, and in VFA-106 at NAS Oceana, she learned how to fly the F/A-18 Hornet. Mann joined VMFA-251 at MCAS Beaufort. He went on two deployments with CVW-1 on the USS Enterprise in support of Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. She was in Class 135 at the US Naval Test Pilot School and worked as an F/A-18 Test Pilot in VX-23 at NAS Patuxent River. She was the leader of the Joint Mission Planning System Expeditionary Integrated Product Team at PMA-281 when she was chosen to be an astronaut candidate.
NASA career
Mann was chosen to be one of the eight people in NASA Astronaut Group 21 in 2013. She finished her training in 2015, and since then she has worked as a T-38 Talon Safety and Training Officer and as the Chief of Exploration’s Assistant. She helped make the Space Launch System, the Exploration Ground Systems, and the Orion spacecraft. In August 2018, she was put in charge of Boe-CFT, which was the first test flight with a crew for the Boeing CST-100 Starliner. But in October 2021, Mann was moved to be the Spacecraft Commander on SpaceX’s Crew-5 mission. He was supposed to fly to the International Space Station on September 29, 2022, but the date was changed to October 5. [8] She wanted to take into space a dreamcatcher that her mother gave her when she was a child. The crew will spend six months on the International Space Station.
Mann is also training for the international Artemis program, and she is in the running to be the first woman to set foot on the Moon in 2025, when a crewed landing is planned.
Personal life
Mann has a son with her husband, Travis R. Mann. In an interview with National Geographic in December 2020, she said that she and her son often sit outside and look at the moon. “Hopefully, one day, he’ll be able to see Mom fly by and walk on the moon,” she said.
Awards
Mann played soccer and was an Academic All American while he was a student at the Naval Academy. She was a Distinguished Graduate and a Trident Scholar. She got two Air Medals, two Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medals, and two Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals during her time in the military. She got the best grade in her class at the US Naval Test Pilot School. She got the 2015 Stephen D. Thorne Safety Award from NASA and the 2017 Jerry Yeagley Award for Exceptional Personal Achievement from the same organization. Mann is a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, Tailhook Association, US Naval Test Pilot School Alumni Association, and US Naval Academy Alumni Association. At the East Coast Society of Experimental Test Pilots Symposium, he won the Leroy Grumman “Best Paper” Award.
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