The San Francisco 49ers honored Colonel Nicole Mann, a very special local hero, on Sunday. Mann is a United States Marine Corps fighter pilot who is also the first Indian at NASA to go into space, leading a mission to the International Space Station.
Mann is also on the list to be the first woman to walk on the moon during NASA’s Artemis-Three space flight in 2025.
ABC7’s Dan Noyes interviewed Col. Nicole Mann about the game.
NICOLE MANN: “So I was born in Petaluma, California, just north of the city. I went to school at Rancho Cotat High School in Rohnert Park. After that I went to the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. I knew I wanted to go into the military and I was interested in technology. And so it was a great tool for both. After that I went to graduate school, back here in California to Stanford University, and then to the Marine Corps Flight School”
andquot;I got my wings and learned to fly an F-18, which is a Hornet, and flew two combat missions from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in Iraq and Afghanistan.andquot;
DAN NOYES: “What’s more exciting, the first plane landing or the SpaceX explosion”
NICOLE MANN: “Both are so exciting, both were beginnings, new chapters in my life. I was the commander of Crew Five and this is a SpaceX spacecraft. We left the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the International Space Station, where the crew and I spent 157 days in orbit of our planet, where we conducted more than 250 science experiments, seven spacewalks at the door, many orientation events and updates to the space station . It was an incredible experience, an incredible view of our planet from space”
“So I was lucky enough to be the first indigenous woman in space”
“I belong to the Wailaki Tribe, which is part of the Round Valley Indian Tribes of Northern California. That and I think it’s very important that we look back at our heritage and our past, I think about where we come from. Thank you to all the parents and people who paved the way to give us these opportunities, and then give back to these communities, because even though we break barriers every day, kids still face obstacles and we need to help them overcome them. these challenges”
