
Nicole Stott is an astronaut, aquanaut, artist, mom, and author of Back to Earth – What Life In Space Taught Me About Our Home Planet And Our Mission To Protect It. She creatively combines the awe and wonder of her spaceflight experience with her artwork to inspire appreciation of our role as crewmates here on Earth.
Nicole is a veteran NASA astronaut with two spaceflights and 104 days as a crewmember on both the International Space Station (ISS) and the Space Shuttle. Personal highlights of her time in space include becoming the 10th woman to perform a spacewalk, flying the robotic arm to capture the first free-flying HTV, painting a watercolor – now on display at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum – working with her international crew on science that is all about improving life on Earth, and the life- changing view of our home planet. Nicole also is a NASA aquanaut. In preparation for space flight, she was a crew member on an 18-day saturation dive mission at the Aquarius undersea laboratory.
Nicole believes that the international model of peaceful and successful cooperation between the extreme environments of space and sea holds the key to the same kind of peaceful and successful cooperation for all of humanity here on Earth.
In her post-NASA mission, Nicole is a co-founder of the Space for Art Foundation, uniting a planetary community of children through the awe and wonder of space exploration and the healing power of art.