Steven Hawley grew up under the dark skies of rural Kansas, where the dream of space travel seized him for a lifetime. Inspired by Astronaut Al Shepard’s first flight beyond the atmosphere, Hawley pursued academic degrees in astronomy, physics, and astrophysics, and later earned a seat in the “Thirty-Five New Guys,” NASA’s first class of astronaut candidates to include civilian scientists and engineers, women, and people of color.
Dr. Hawley made history deploying and servicing the Hubble Space Telescope, helping deploy the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and setting records including the highest orbit flown by a Space Shuttle, then later continued his NASA career in management. He investigated the Challenger and Columbia accidents, helped plan future missions to the Moon and Mars, and helped manage cooperative missions between NASA and Russia that led to the development of the International Space Station. After his retirement, he returned to the University of Kansas, his alma mater, as Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Director of Engineering Physics. He currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas, and volunteers his time for the Kansas Cosmosphere and the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation.