Sonoma County’s Nicole Mann on top of the world

Sonoma County residents watched with pride as Col. Nicole Aunapu Mann, commander of Wednesday’s mission to the International Space Station, sat atop a 230-foot rocket loaded with 1 million pounds of liquid oxygen.

After a countdown and liftoff so picture-perfect they seemed out of a Hollywood movie, the spacecraft and its four passengers reached Earth orbit without a hitch.

“Awesome!” Mann said. “That was a smooth ride uphill.”

(Petaluma’s Nicole Mann makes history as first Native American woman in space)

And just like that, the Sonoma County native – Mann was born in Petaluma, raised in Penngrove and graduated from Rancho Cotate High School in Rohnert Park – became the first Native American woman ever to go to space.

Back at Rancho Cotate, Mann’s flight also cemented her position there as one of the school’s most accomplished students.

“We’re very proud that one of our graduates is in this position,” said Louis Ganzler, Rancho Cotate’s principal. “Less than 600 people in the whole world have been to space, so this is still a really rare thing.”

(Penngrove astronaut Nicole Mann talks to Rohnert Park students about space career)

It was clear, he added, based on the reactions of those who knew her, Mann was meant for this mission.

Flora Lee Ganzler, who taught Mann history when she was at Rancho Cotate, called her a “remarkable woman.”

“I clearly remember her because she had this ‘we can do this’ attitude,” she said. “You just saw a person who was ready to tackle the world.”

Matt Transue graduated high school with Mann. He said it didn’t come as a shock to any of her old friends that she went into space.

“If you knew Nicole, when she gets her head into something, she’s going to get it done,” he said. “Any barrier in her way, she blew right through and we’re genuinely very proud of not only her but proud of what she represents.”

Transue is now a social studies teacher at Rancho Cotate, and he streamed the launch for his students to watch. He said it was awesome to see Mann walk down the tarmac and give commands from the rocket.

“We all had goosebumps watching someone from our community go to space,” he said.

Judy Coffey’s daughter, Lynsey Serpa, was a classmate and close friend of Mann’s at Rohnert Park Middle School and then in high school. Both played soccer and tried out for the Olympic Development team as teens.

“Nicole was incredibly smart with an amazing sense of humor. She was just so brilliant at a young age,” said Coffey, a registered nurse who spent more than 30 years as a top executive at Kaiser Permanente, including 15 years as a senior vice president and area manager for the system’s Marin-Sonoma service area. She retired in 2019.

She also serves as a community member of The Press Democrat’s editorial board.

“What I can remember is she always loved the sky,” Coffey said of Mann. “She would always talk about the stars and the moon. I can remember that so clearly. She was intrigued by the sky and space when she was 10, 12, 13 years old. It didn’t always make sense to me at the time, but it sure does today.

“I was talking to my daughter yesterday that it’s crazy we knew this young, quirky, funny, wonderful and incredibly intelligent girl as a child and now she’s in space,” she said.

Mann, 45, first tackled the world through academic excellence, graduating from Rancho Cotate in 1995, then earning a degree in mechanical engineering from the Naval Academy, followed by a master’s from Stanford University – also in engineering with a specialty in fluid mechanics.

From there she joined the Marines, becoming a decorated pilot with more than 2,500 flight hours in 25 types of aircraft, 200 aircraft carrier landings, and flying 47 combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 2013, NASA decided she had the right stuff to become an astronaut.

In an interview with the Marine Corps Times, Mann said her military training had given her the physical and mental discipline “that’s really prepared me for all this training that I have at NASA and preparing for a flight into space.”

Mann, a member of the Wailacki of the Round Valley Indian Tribes based primarily in Mendocino County, took her mother’s dreamcatcher along with her into space, according to the Associated Press.

“I am very proud to represent Native Americans and my heritage,” she said before the flight, according to the AP. “It’s important to celebrate our diversity and also realize how important it is when we collaborate and unite, the incredible accomplishments that we can have.”

Besides Mann, the mission includes NASA pilot Josh Cassada, mission specialist Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and Russian cosmonaut Anna Kikina.

The crew is scheduled to arrive at the space station Thursday, 29 hours after its departure from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The group is expected to return to Earth in March.

Don Frances is the editor of the Petaluma Argus-Courier and can be reached at don.frances@argus-courier.com. Sara Edwards is the business reporter for The Press Democrat and can be reached at sara.edwards@pressdemocrat.com.