When Edward Michael “Mike” Fincke was 3, someone asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up.
“An astronaut,” Fincke replied.
Fifty-four years later, that dream continues to be a reality for Fincke, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut and retired U.S. Air Force colonel. The Emsworth native and Sewickley Academy graduate was selected to be an astronaut by NASA in 1996.
Thousands apply to be astronauts. They go through a series of interviews, testing and scenarios. The selection board is able to choose only a set number of people on an as-needed basis, according to NASA.
Fincke has logged more than a year in orbit— 381 days, 15 hours and 11 minutes — and has spent 48 hours and 37 minutes on spacewalks.
“As soon as I learned to read, I read about space,” said Fincke, who was the guest speaker at the Community College of Allegheny County’s Space Day on Sept. 12. “There’s a lot to my story but part of the story is that I was a very energetic young kid, so my parents sent me to the Buhl Planetarium during the summer.”
The Buhl Planetarium, which merged with the Carnegie Science Center, was on the North Side where the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh is located. At a nearby park, Fincke recalled launching his first model rocket.
That’s the moment his space career took off, he said.
“I’m just a regular kid from Pittsburgh, and if it could happen to me, it could happen to you,” Fincke said.
A majority of his time in space has been aboard the ISS. He also has flown on the space shuttle and has been a leader in the commercial crew program, which provides commercially operated crew transportation service to and from the International Space Station — think of them as space taxis, where NASA hires commercial space companies to provide transportation to and from the space station instead of owning and operating launch vehicles.
Fincke has been on two duration missions on the International Space Station and one of the final space shuttle missions.
He said one of the highlights of his life outside of work that came about because of his passion for space was when he was on an episode of “Star Trek: Enterprise” as an engineer.
In 2015, he was named assistant to the chief for commercial crew in the astronaut office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, which is where he lives with his wife, Renita Saikia, and their three children.
Fincke said one of the biggest challenges is being away from his family when he is on a mission, which meant missing the birth of his second child in 2004.
Fincke is a veteran of three spaceflights — Expedition 9 in 2004, Expedition 18 in 2009 and STS-134 in 2011.
“I just thought, ‘I am gonna get in this spaceship rocket and leave,’ ” Fincke said of his first space venture. “You have to have faith in your team. You have to have faith in the system. And people have a lot of faith and trust in us to do a good job, too.”
He is conversant in Japanese and Russian — he flew to the International Space Station on a Russian rocket — and is in training and planning for one more mission in 2025.
Fincke has helped inform how NASA will do current and future space exploration.
He is an inspiration for students at Sewickley Academy, Dr. Ashley Birtwell, Sewickley Academy head of school, said via email. In March 2009, while in space, Fincke took questions from Sewickley Academy’s fifth grade students via satellite — certainly qualifying as an “out-of-this-world conversation,” Birtwell said.
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Sewickley Academy hosts an annual career week when alumni talk with students about their career paths and what they wish they had known earlier. The school has a mentorship program for students, matching them with alumni in their fields of interest. In 2005, Fincke was inducted into the school’s Science and Technology Hall of Fame.
“We are honored that Mike has visited campus to meet with our students numerous times throughout the years.”
He serves as a powerful role model and inspiration for current students, especially as we see a growing interest amongst our students to go into STEM-related fields,” Birtwell said, using an acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
As one of nine children, Fincke said Sewickley Academy “opened their arms and found scholarships, not just for me, but for all my eight brothers and sisters.”
“They were able to inspire me and give me the skills that I needed to go off to some fancy schools and to be competitive as an astronaut and a representative of our country, and I’m very grateful to them for offering that opportunity,” said Fincke, whose parents still live in the area.
After graduating in 1985, Fincke attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in aeronautics and astronautics and a degree in Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences. At the Moscow Aviation Institute in the former Soviet Union, he studied cosmonautics, the spaceflight curriculum of the Russian Space Agency.
Fincke said the Russians have been a great partner in the space program and the U.S. has been a great partner to them, too. He said they need to continue moving forward “despite the horrible things that are happening right now (in war).”
Fincke, who also has a Master of Science in aeronautics and astronautics from Stanford University, was a space test engineer at Los Angeles Air Force Base and has more than 1,900 flight hours in more than 30 aircraft types. He retired from the Air Force after 21 years.
Fincke has received NASA distinguished service medals and spaceflight medals and is a recipient of the first International Space Station leadership award. He said it takes time for astronauts to adapt.
“Eventually, you just feel normal, except you can fly,” Fincke said. “And then you look out the window and you see the most beautiful planet in the solar system slowly rotating below. It is cool to be in space. It is a joy and inspiration to fly. Great adventures are what we do.”