Mike Massimino

Mike Massimino is a former NASA Astronaut, a New York Times bestselling author, a Columbia University engineering professor, and an advisor at The Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum.

A veteran of two space shuttle missions and four spacewalks, Mike was the first person to tweet from space, holds the team record for the most spacewalking time on a single space shuttle mission, and successfully completed the most complicated spacewalk ever attempted to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. Mike persisted through three rejections over 7 years on his way to becoming an astronaut, including overcoming a medical disqualification by training his eyes and brain to see better.

He has had a recurring role as himself on the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory, is the host for the Science Channel Series The Planets and Beyond, was featured in National Geographic Television’s One Strange Rock, is a frequent expert guest on news programs and late night television (including Good Morning America, The Today Show, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and The Late Show with David Letterman), and has been called the real-life astronaut who inspired George Clooney’s role in the movie Gravity. He lives in New York City.