Former Astronaut Leland Melvin Says a False Police Accusation Nearly Cost His Career

A traffic stop in the early ’80s almost changed the trajectory of astronaut Leland Melvin’s life

When Leland Melvin was in high school, he says he was in a car with his then-girlfriend when a police officer suddenly rolled up. The officer grabbed Melvin’s girlfriend out of the vehicle.

“He tries to convince her I was raping her because he wanted me to go to jail,” Melvin said in a recorded interview with Bill Nye. “He said, ‘If you don’t say he’s raping you, I’m going to take you to jail, your parents are going to have to come get you, and you’re going to have a record.’”

Melvin said his girlfriend refused, and the officer eventually gave up.

After the incident, Melvin went on to get drafted into the NFL, become a scientist and enter the NASA astronaut program, and log more than 565 hours in space, including two missions to the International Space Station. If you’ve ever seen this amazing NASA portrait of an astronaut and his two dogs, that’s Leland Melvin.

“I think about George Floyd. I think about Trayvon Martin,” he said. “I think about Dylann Roof walking into a church and killing nine parishioners and being able to walk out, no guns trained at him to take him down. George Floyd potentially has a counterfeit $20, and that’s enough to get the life snuffed out of you.”