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Notable Graduates

Major General Charles Bolden

Major General Charles Bolden

NASA Astronaut

Class of 1968
  • Astronaut
  • NASA Administrator

Profile

 

After graduating from the Naval Academy, Charles Bolden accepted a commission in the U.S. Marine Corps. As a naval aviator, he flew more than 100 sorties into North and South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, in the A-6A Intruder. Following his return to the United States, Bolden graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River, Maryland.

Major General Bolden became an astronaut in 1981. He has served on four space flights including STS-31, during which the crew deployed the Hubble Space Telescope, and has logged over 680 hours in space.

Bolden left NASA in 1994 and returned to active duty in the U.S. Marine Corps to become Deputy Commandant of Midshipmen at the U.S. Naval Academy. Major General Charles F. Bolden, Jr., then served as the Deputy Commander, U.S. Forces, Japan, Yokota Air Base, Japan. In 2003 he retired from the Marine Corps and in 2009 he became the administrator of NASA.

 
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