The experience of being in space and his time of being on a hit TV sitcom are just a couple of the topics Mike Massimino will talk about during his Shepperd Leadership Institute appearance at 7 p.m. March 30 at the Wagner Noël Performing Arts Center.
His talk is part of the John Ben Shepperd Leadership Institute Distinguished Lecture series and the lecture is free. Massimino, who is also a bestselling author, gave a sneak preview during a media call Thursday. His book is called “Spaceman An Astronaut’s Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe.”
Being in space, he said, was magical, wonderful, but also fairly difficult and stressful. Massimino went on two missions to upgrade and improve the Hubble Telescope.
“We wanted to do our job as best we could, so there was that element of it, but it was just extraordinary; the whole experience,” Massimino said.
He added that he misses the training almost as much as being in space. There was the business side of the missions, but also the spiritual side of looking back at Earth and seeing how beautiful it is. It changed his perspective and it was a great team effort.
“It’s like looking into a paradise. It changed my thinking about the planet. I do believe we are living in a paradise and it’s a home that we all share no matter where we’re from anywhere on the planet …,” he said.
“I highly recommend it. Being a NASA astronaut is a great job,” Massimino added.
He first got interested in becoming an astronaut when he was 6 and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.
“I saw that and it made me want to grow up and be an astronaut. I used to pretend I was Neil Armstrong on the moon. My mom converted an elephant costume to an astronaut costume and I had my Snoopy with me …,” Massimino said, pointing out the famous Beagle from Peanuts on the Zoom call.
“I got him when i was 6 years old and he was like my Buzz Aldrin. We’d have these adventures in the backyard pretending we were on the moon. That’s what I wanted to do as a little boy … But by the time I was about 8 or 9, I didn’t see myself doing that. I found out I was afraid of heights. I didn’t like going very fast on my bicycle. I wasn’t really much of a thrill-seeking kid and I also didn’t know how you could do those things; how could you grow up to be an astronaut. My neighbors and my family, there was no one who did anything remotely close to that, so I kind of crossed it off the list of the things you could do. It wasn’t until … after graduating as an engineer in college that I started to pursue not just the astronaut dream, but also a career in the space program. I decided that’s really what my first love was and that’s what I wanted to pursue. I really didn’t start pursuing it until I was out of college, but that interest in the space program was put inside of my head and my heart when I was 6 years old watching Neal Armstrong on the moon,” Massimino said.
It took many years to be able to go into space. Massimino started going after his dream in 1986 when he was in graduate school.
“I applied four times. I was rejected three times, including a medical disqualification that I had to get overturned. Then I was able to do that and was selected on my fourth try to be part of the astronaut class of 1996. It’s a long path to getting there …,” he added.
The selection process is very competitive as there are thousands and thousands of qualified great people who want to do that job.
He said he is looking forward to lecture.
“It’s going to be a community lecture, so I’m looking forward to making my talk applicable to people of all ages. I think we’ll have young people and older people there, I hope, and families and the whole community,” he said. “… I’ll talk about my path to becoming an astronaut and what that was like and then I’ll talk about some of my experiences and some of my lessons learned. I want everyone to know how cool it is to fly in space. I learned a lot flying in space not even just flying in space but a lot of really, I thought, important life lessons and lessons about team work and leadership. I want to share some of that, but overall I want to share the wonderful experience of what it was like to fly to in space.”
Massimino also is a television personality having made appearances on “The Big Bang Theory.” At first, he was a technical advisor of sorts and then they invited him to make a cameo.
“We filmed that episode and that led to another six episodes for me to be on before the show ended. … It was almost like doing a space flight in some ways because it’s a big team effort and a lot of people are involved and everyone has a role. … I got to play myself, so I really didn’t feel like I was acting, but it was really fun to see the way they put on a show,” he said.
The relationships he formed with the actors, writers and the rest of the crew became like family. Massimino said he is still in touch with a lot of them. He said being afraid or nervous is different and it’s good because it means you care about what you’re doing and you can use it to help you prepare.
At that point, it’s time to rely on your training, your gear and your team. You also need to trust yourself. Thinking about things before you do them is often worse than the actual experience.
Asked about the food in space flight, Massimino said he was among the only astronauts that gained weight in space because he liked the food. His favorite was macaroni and cheese, but he also liked lasagna and kept his own stash of Biscotti.
