On this day in 1955, popular science educator Bill Nye was born.

As well as helming the children’s series Bill Nye the Science Guy from 1993 to 1998, Nye is in fact a scientist: he received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at Cornell University in 1977, and his first job in the field was at Boeing. There, he developed a hydraulic pressure resonance suppressor for the 747, and also acted in training films.

He served as a consultant in the aeronautics industry afterward, and started acting in a professional capacity in 1991. According to a newspaper interview from 1999, Nye applied to be a NASA astronaut “every few years,” but is regularly rejected. Nye said that his lack of a Ph.D. has been an obstacle to his going to space.

 

Both of Nye’s parents were involved in World War II, his mother as a codebreaker and his father in the Navy.