In the 1960s, at the height of the Space Race, a young boy named Steven Hawley dreamed of getting close to the stars. But with the odds stacked against him to become an astronaut, he dove deep into a study of telescopes and astronomy, never thinking he'd be one of the few who would get to fly in space.
Hawley earned his big break in 1977, seizing the opportunity to apply to the NASA recruitment initiative that would famously offer the first women, people of color, and non-pilots a position aboard the Space Shuttle. As a member of the cohort called "the Thirty-Five New Guys," Hawley ascended from civilian PhD candidate to Astronaut alongside the likes of Robert "Hoot" Gibson, Ellison Onizuka, Guion Bluford, and Sally Ride, whom he would later marry.
Among a long list of achievements over a thirty-year career at NASA, Astronaut Hawley oversaw the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, managed the joint missions between NASA and Russia that led to the development of the International Space Station (ISS), and investigated the causes of the Columbia re-entry disaster of 2003. He was the first non-pilot to hold the position of Deputy Chief of the Astronaut Office.
Told in his own words, Eyes to the Stars is the story of a civilian scientist-turned-spaceman, a tale of groundbreaking discovery and death-defying bravery standing next to some of the greatest explorers in the history of the American space program.
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.
