Oct 18, 2007 8:13 PM
In August, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly’s assignment took him some 250 miles above the Earth to the International Space Station, which he visited as commander of the space shuttle Endeavor. A month later, his mission was a bit more down to Earth: he met with students and staff at Samuel Gompers Career and Technical HS.
“Thanks to GPS, I found my way to Gompers without a hitch!” he said.
Kelly, whose crew performed multiple spacewalks during the 13-day trip of 5.3 million miles, delivered a multimedia presentation at the Bronx school and answered what he called “some of the most brilliant questions I’ve ever been asked by students.”
The experimental test pilot of the F/A18 Hornet, who is also the first pilot to fly an F-14 Tomcat with an experimental digital flight control system installed, has logged almost 4,000 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft and has over 250 aircraft carrier landings.
The U.S. space program and Gompers are historically linked. Robert White, who in July 1962 became America’s first “Winged Astronaut” for having flown into space without a conventional spacecraft, is an alumnus.
Gompers is maintaining its tradition by offering special programs in subjects like pre-engineering, robotics and advanced science and math. “Those are excellent areas of concentration,” said Kelly, whose degrees are in electrical engineering and aviation systems.
Science coordinator Jerry Tsekas, who organized Kelly’s visit, said Gompers is seeking “to create a program for our students to transition from high school to college to NASA. That is our crusade.”
After touring the school, observing a “really impressive” lesson in the science laboratory, and meeting with students and staff, Kelly narrated a show of awesome images taken from his recent space mission.
Michael Mulgrew, UFT vice president for career and technical high schools, attended the event and was excited both about Kelly’s presentation and the students’ reaction to it.
“There is no elevator to success,” Mulgrew said. “We all have to take the stairway one step at a time. These kids are on their way and it’s very exciting.”