Blue Hills Graduate Scott D. Tingle Becomes an Astronaut

Editor's note: Judy Bass is the communications specialist for Blue Hills Regional Technical School.

Blue Hills graduate Scott D. Tingle will become an astronaut, fulfilling a lifelong dream.

Tingle, 46, a commander in the U.S. Navy and a highly decorated pilot, will formally graduate from Astronaut Candidate Training in Houston, Texas on Nov. 4, 2011. 

He will join the elite ranks of the men and women working for NASA.

A 1983 alumnus of Blue Hills Regional Technical School in Canton, Tingle studied Machine Drafting.  He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from Southeastern Massachusetts University (now the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth), graduating magna cum laude  in 1987.  He earned a Master of Science degree in mechanical engineering with a specialty in fluid mechanics and propulsion from Purdue University in Indiana in 1988.

According to Tingle’s NASA biography, “Following graduate school, he was commissioned as a naval officer in 1991 and earned his wings of gold as a naval aviator in 1993.  He began his operational flying career in 1994. He has accumulated more than 3,500 flight hours in 48 types of aircraft, 700 carrier arrestments and 54 combat missions in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

His  awards include a Meritorious Service Medal, three Air Medals, six Navy Commendation Medals, including a Combat V, four Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals and various unit commendations. 

Yet the best was yet to come for Tingle, a milestone achieved by only a select few – being named as one of 14 men and women in NASA’s 20th astronaut class. 

Tingle remembers that extraordinary day, June 29, 2009, very well.  

Upon hearing that he had been chosen out of about 3,500 applicants, he said, “I was speechless.  I had thought of that day for pretty much 40 years.  I was obviously elated with happiness and enthusiasm.”

Tingle said that NASA doesn’t specify exactly what the criteria for picking the astronaut candidates are, but he cited a few elements that he believes are heavily considered, such as a solid career track, academic and personal background, flight experience, personality, and willingness to be part of a team.

“They want a really highly-qualified person to do a job in an extreme environment,” Tingle explained.

The depictions of space travel in popular films like “Apollo 13” are “pretty real,” Tingle noted, but he cautioned that what he called “the wow stuff” is only about 10 to 15 per cent of it.  You don’t get a feel for the nuts and bolts actuality of it until you live it, Tingle said.

His acceptance into the class would be the start of a protracted and grueling process of technical classroom instruction, field training, trips to Germany and Japan to see their space programs, and T-38 flight training. 

There was also “Extravehicle Activity Training,” which consisted of wearing a 200-pound space suit, then going underwater to perform various duties like releasing and installing lines, working with robotic arms, and talking to Mission Control in conditions roughly simulating those found on the Space Station.

In addition to learning how to maintain and troubleshoot every system on it, Tingle said that he and the others also had to achieve “intermediate low-level fluency” in the Russian language because the Russians are our primary partner in this venture.

The survival readiness entailed finding food, navigating, building structures and knowing emergency medical care.

Sounding unfazed by all the intense physical and mental rigors of the previous several months, Tingle proclaimed it “great training.”

Another type of training, his Blue Hills high school education, has also proven valuable.  Today, nearly 30 years after Tingle graduated, he said, “Having that vocational background was absolutely huge [in my life].  Blue Hills was the right choice for me.”

At the school, Tingle said that he designed equipment, did work/study, welded, drilled, took college-level courses, and as a result, can fix everything in his house in League City, Texas.

“Blue Hills has a really good culture that promotes a work ethic,” he said.  “You’ve got an unstoppable equation going there.”

One of Tingle’s now-retired Blue Hills teachers, Bill Cahill, remembers him vividly. 

Calling him “one of the most liked students in the senior class,” Cahill said he was a “super student who was a pleasure to be around.”

“If I had a class of Scott Tingles,” Cahill noted, “I’d probably be teaching for another 30 years.”

The unseen downside of Tingle’s demanding, peripatetic career, though, is the wear-and-tear on his family life.  He said that in the last 10 years, he has only been able to come back home to Randolph, Massachusetts, to visit his parents maybe three or four times.

As for his wife, Raynette, and their three children – a 17-year-old daughter and two sons, 15 and 9 respectively – they have had to adjust to frequent separations and sacrifice.  

“My kids are actually very strong,” Tingle pointed out gratefully.

Now, as he stands on the thrilling brink of finally realizing his goal, Tingle said that serving his nation “means everything.” 

Referring to being an astronaut, he said that 20 years ago, he would have called it “a really cool job.”  Ten years ago, he’d have said “it’s awesome to be part of a team.” 

“This time,” he said, “I want to serve. That is the part that really makes me tick.”