Standing at 6 feet, 4 inches, even NASA astronaut Scott Altman admits he’s tall, and says his height almost kept him from his dream of flying. He began as an aerospace engineering undergrad at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 1977 and earned his B.S. in 1981, shortly after NASA launched the space shuttle for the first time.
“I wanted to fly. That was my whole thing,” Altman said. “When I went to the Air Force Academy for the pre-induction physical, they measured my sitting height and said ‘Altman, you’re too tall to be an Air Force pilot.’ I thought that dream was over. When I graduated from high school, I thought, if I can’t fly airplanes, I’ll work on them,” he said.
Altman said he looked at some other schools and even had scholarships to a couple—one, not surprisingly, if he’d play basketball. He said he chose Illinois because it has the best aerospace engineering school and being from Pekin, Illinois, he could take advantage of in-state tuition.
While he was at Illinois studying engineering, the Navy tried to recruit him by asking if he’d be interested in working in the area of nuclear power. He told them, no, but to send him pictures of airplanes. The Navy responded by sending him a book about naval aviation.
“I flipped through the pages and found out that the sitting height standard went up to 41 inches. The Air force limit was 38 ½ inches and I’m 39 ½ inches. Hey, there's another way for me to fly.”
Altman was selected to attend Aviation Officer Candidate School in Pensacola for eight weeks as a summer camp between his junior and senior years at Illinois. Later, he earned an M.S. in 1990 in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School. Eventually, he went on to fly four missions for NASA, including the fifth and final Hubble servicing mission in 2009. In total, he spent over 50 days in space. Visit NASA’s website for details about Altman’s flight history and accomplishments.
When asked about his overall experience of space travel, Altman described his amazement at seeing his hometown and school from that unique perspective.
“It was only on my very first mission that we were in the right orbital inclination when we got over Central Illinois to see it,” he said. “Every day we were either in the wrong attitude, or there was cloud cover, and you can’t see the ground. It was day 15. We were landing the next day. I looked out and it was clear. Using the map on a laptop, I could see St. Louis. I followed the river up to my hometown and grab my camera. Wow. That’s where all of the people that made it possible for me to be here live. It still gets to me, talking about it even now. That was a peak experience.”
What’s Altman doing now?
“Well, NASA retired the space shuttle. I didn't have a ride anymore, so I decided it was time to look for something else to do—a new challenge. I joined industry,” Altman said.
Altman is currently the President of the Space Operating Group at ASRC Federal with 2,400 people across the country working under his leadership umbrella.
“We provide support services like extra engineers, extra scientists, and technicians, to assist NASA in achieving its goals,” Altman said. “I visit different sites, talk to customers, find out what they need, and then develop proposals when NASA, or NOAA, or Space Force puts out a request. We write a response and if we win the contract, a transition team recruits and hires talent. It keeps me busy.”
About his career, Altman said it has been about moving from one challenge to another.
“Getting a degree in Illinois was a challenge. Becoming a pilot, then going into test pilot school, working as a test pilot, going to NASA, and trying to figure out how to run a space shuttle were challenges. And then finally leaving NASA and joining industry. I’ve had to learn a whole new vocabulary. P&L doesn’t mean payload anymore. It means profit and loss because that's important in the business world.”
On Monday, Altman visited the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. In the morning, he met with members of the Illinois Space Society and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics student chapter. Later, he presented awards on behalf of the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation to two Illinois students and give a talk entitled “Reach for the Stars” to an audience of about 300 students, faculty, and members of the community.
He said although going to Mars isn’t a viable option for him in the future, Altman hopes to get there through someone else.
“I would like to see a third or fourth grader or middle-school student from where I gave a talk grow up, go to Mars, and say, ‘I remember when Scooter came to my class and talked about how you could do anything. And here I am.’ So, I'm gonna go Mars through somebody I talked to. That’s the ultimate.”