Dr. Don Thomas last went to space 24 years ago. He is excited about the plans to send astronauts to Mars in 25 years. Luckily, his audience today will be just the right age when that time comes. They are the "Mars Generation."
Kindergarten teacher Katie Shirley introduced her class to Dr. Thomas via Zoom. His presentation was arranged by the family of Will McCall, a student in Mrs. Katie's class. Dr. Thomas was on four Space Shuttle missions, the last in 1997. Overall, he has flown around the Earth more than 600 times.
Dr. Thomas started his presentation was a life lesson: never give up. He decided he wanted to be an astronaut when he was six years old and watched a launch. "I knew I would go into space one day." So he studied hard, became a pilot and worked as an engineer. He applied four times to be an astronaut and was turned down the first three times.
Next, he talked about the launch experience, explaining that it takes 8 1/2 minutes for the space shuttle to make it to space from the launch pad while traveling 17,500 miles an hour or five miles a second. The space station orbited the Earth every one and a half hours. He also talked about living in zero gravity, eating and drinking, exercising, sleeping, bathing and even going to bathroom in space.
He showed the students some of the pictures he took from space. One picture was enhanced to show where Bright School is located!
Finally, Dr. Thomas talked about the future of space exploration. NASA is currently working on the Space Launch System, which is replacing the shuttles. The first tests are a year away, and plans are for it to travel to the moon without any astronauts. In four year, there are plans to send astronauts, including the first woman, to the moon for a landing. Next, NASA plans to send missions to asteroids and the moons of Mars. Twenty-five years from now, NASA hopes to send astronauts to the Mars surface. Several hands among the students shot up when Dr. Thomas asked who would like to go to Mars. Maybe one of these six-year-olds wil be an astronaut one day.
Watch a recording of the Zoom here.
