In April 1990, the crew of the space shuttle Discovery released the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit, where its view would be free of the blur that Earth's atmosphere imposes on ground-based telescopes. Charles F. Bolden Jr. served as pilot of that flight, one of four shuttle missions he flew between 1986 and 1994.
Bolden's preparation began in uniform. He earned an electrical-science degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1968 and a master's degree in systems management from the University of Southern California, then trained as a test pilot in the Marine Corps. He rose to major general, and NASA selected him as an astronaut in 1980.
His four shuttle flights included two as pilot and two as commander. Those missions combined satellite deployments, science work and, in the case of the Hubble deployment, an observatory that would transform astronomy. Shuttle crews depended on thousands of people on the ground, and Bolden's later career kept him close to that larger system.
In 2009, Bolden became NASA's administrator, the agency's top appointed official, and served until 2017. During that tenure he established the Space Technology Mission Directorate, which invests in the technologies future missions require, and oversaw agency work on exploration spacecraft and commercial space transportation, an approach in which private companies fly cargo and crews under NASA contracts. His career had come full circle: the pilot responsible for a spacecraft's systems now led the agency responsible for the nation's civilian space program.
The agency Bolden led was also changing how the United States reaches orbit, with companies taking on cargo and crew transportation under NASA contracts. Bolden's flight experience gave that transition a particular kind of credibility inside and outside the agency: the administrator had flown the systems the new programs would supplement.
