Altman became an ensign in August 1981, and completed advanced jet training, and his Navy wings of gold, in February 1983. He was designated an F-14A Tomcat pilot, and his first assignment was with Fighter Squadron 51, stationed at Naval Air Station Miramar, in San Diego, CA. Altman completed two deployments to the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean. (It was during his time at Miramar that _Top Gun (1986)_qv was filmed, with Altman appearing as an F-14 pilot in a few scenes.) In August 1987, he was selected for Test Pilot School and was the Distinguished Graduate in June 1990. After graduation, he spent the next two years as a test pilot working on various F-14 projects. His next assignment was with Fighter Squadron 31, which was the first squadron to field the new F-14D. His squadron participated in Operation SOUTHERN WATCH over Iraq, and during the deployment he was notified of his selection for the astronaut program. Altman reported to the Johnson Space Center in March 1995. He was the pilot of Space Shuttle Columbia on STS-90, which was aloft for 16 days (Apr 17-May 3, 1998), performing life science microgravity experiments on the brain and nervous system in Spacelab. He also flew as pilot of Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-106 (Sept 8-20, 2000), which was the last construction flight to the "unmanned" International Space Station before its first permanent crew arrived. Altman flew as the commander of STS-109 aboard Space Shuttle Columbia, which was the fourth maintenance flight to the Hubble Space Telescope, (Mar 1-12, 2002).
