The Astronaut

Charles Bolden graduated from the Naval Academy in 1968 and went on to fly more than 100 combat missions during the Vietnam War as a member of the Marine Corps.

Selected as a space shuttle astronaut in 1980, Bolden traveled to orbit four times between 1986 and 1994, commanding two of the missions and piloting two others.

In 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama nominated Bolden as the 12th administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. He served in this role until retiring from NASA in 2017.

I Serve is a production from Foreign Policy and With Honor.

For more stories of heroism, check out Courage Can Save Us, a new book from With Honor CEO and co-founder Rye Barcott, available now.

And for more information on the Robert Irvine Foundation, click here.