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Four Educators Number Among NASA's Newest Astronauts

Posted on: Tuesday, 15 June 2004, 06:00 CDT

Jun. 15--While picking sugar beets near Stockton, Calif., with his parents in 1980, Jose Hernandez learned NASA had chosen its first Hispanic astronaut, physicist Franklin Chang-Diaz. The news convinced an 18-year-old farm worker that his dream was attainable.

On Monday -- 24 years later -- Hernandez started work at Johnson Space Center in a blue jump suit and clunky black boots. He's ready to go to the moon.

"When I was eight or nine years old, the images of the Apollo astronauts walking on the moon left such an impression on me," Hernandez said.

NASA picked 11 U.S. citizens for NASA's astronaut corps last month, the first chosen since President Bush outlined plans to launch explorers to the moon and eventually to Mars. Eight of them, including Hernandez, were at Johnson Space Center on Monday to discuss their new opportunities.

The recruits include a professor of orthopedic surgery, three classroom teachers and a space physicist. Three military pilots also chosen weren't at the space center Monday because their training won't start until August.

Hernandez's parents crossed the California border every spring to pick fruits and vegetables. Their son was a good student who excelled at math. He became an electrical engineer and eventually joined the space agency.

Until his selection to the astronaut corps, Hernandez supervised a team developing techniques to repair the kind of external damage that caused the shuttle Columbia breakup.

"A lot of other kids, I'm sure, had the idea of becoming astronauts when they grow up," Hernandez said. "For me, that drive never subsided."

Hernandez was selected from a pool of about 3,000 candidates. Others selected also traded in polished careers for a chance to go to space.

Dr. Robert Satcher left a successful career as a professor of orthopedic surgery at Northwestern University in Chicago.

"I could have continued being a surgeon and helping people one on one," Satcher said. "This is an unusual opportunity. It provides a lot of opportunity for discovery and a unique opportunity to learn things that can help everyone."

Likewise, Dr. Tom Marshburn gave up his job as a NASA flight surgeon.

Richard Arnold left a teaching job at the American International School in Bucharest, Romania, to join NASA. He is one of three new educator-astronauts, part of a strategy by the space agency to encourage more students to pursue careers in engineering and the sciences.

"I don't think there is any better model that can explain to kids how cooperation has grown across the borders than space exploration," Arnold said. "When it was announced at the school I was selected to come here, there was an explosion of applause. It was exciting to them that someone they knew would be part of it."

Others in the class include Shannon Walker, a space physicist who grew up in Houston; Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, a former high school teacher from Vancouver, Wa.; Joseph Acaba, a science and math teacher from Dunnellon, Fla.; and Chris Cassidy, a Navy SEAL who did two tours in Afghanistan. Three Japanese astronauts will train with them.

The newest members of the astronaut corps report first to Pensacola, Fla., where they will undergo survival and flight training. Their full course of instruction is two years.

The work will make them eligible for a future assignment aboard the shuttle, the space station or a new spacecraft developed for journeys to the moon and Mars.

"Who wouldn't want to go to the moon?" Marshburn said.

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