The elite group of legendary American space heroes now includes George “Pinky” Nelson ’72.

George was inducted, along with fellow astronauts William Shepherd and Jim Wetherbee, into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame during a public ceremony at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex in Florida on May 2.

This is the eighth group of space shuttle astronauts named to the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. The addition of Pinky, one of only four space shuttle astronauts to fly the Manned Maneuvering Unit untethered in space; Shepherd, commander of the first crew to man the International Space Station; and Wetherbee, commander of the longest docked shuttle-Mir mission, will bring the number of space explorers enshrined in the Hall of Fame to 73.

Earlier inductees represent the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz programs. Hall of famers include Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Alan Shepard, Jim Lovell, Sally Ride and John Young.

“It is an honor to be recognized by your peers for the work that you did not only in space, but also on the ground to support space exploration,” Pinky said of the honor. “None of this would have happened if it weren’t for the experiences I had at Harvey Mudd-learning physics for sure, but also the patient mentoring of Howard and Iris Critchell, who did for me what they have done for so many students. They helped me develop the confidence to apply the theory I was learning to the real world wonder of flight. In the end it’s turned out okay.”

In addition to a B.S. degree from HMC, Pinky earned a Ph.D. from the University of Washington and served as a NASA astronaut from 1978 to 1989. He is currently the director of Science, Mathematics, and Technology Education and an associate professor of physics and astronomy at Western Washington University (WWU).

He is the former director of AAAS Project 2061, the education officer-elect of the American Astronomical Society and served as associate vice provost for research at the University of Washington. Pinky is also principal investigator for the North Cascades and Olympic Science Partnership, an NSF-funded project that partners WWU with other local colleges in engaging young people in the pursuit of science.

At the Hall of Fame induction ceremony, Pinky performed with the band Max Q, a Houston-based rock band whose members are all NASA Astronauts. Pinky said, “We managed to pull off two songs with a half-hour’s practice.”

In aerospace engineering, max Q is the point of maximum dynamic pressure, the point at which aerodynamic stress on a spacecraft in atmospheric flight is maximized.

According to the online newsletter, Planetary Times (Oct. 19, 2005 issue), “In early 1987, astronauts Robert Gibson, George Nelson, Brewster Shaw and Jim Wetherbee formed the first all-astronaut rock group. This self-described ‘easy rock’ band started meeting secretly in an aircraft hangar to play guitars and sing. Nelson was then training for STS-26, NASA’s return to flight after the Challenger disaster, and music gave him an outlet for the stress of the shuttle simulator.”

On hand to cheer—and rock—with Pinky were Ellen Martin Karl ’87 (wearing her Bates Aero insignia, “Order of the Blown Fuse”) and Astronaut Scholars Robert Panish ’06 and Nadia Abuelezam ’09.