Harvesting Stars: Astronaut Jose Hernandez talk about humble beginnings & stellar achievements

In honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, astronaut Jose M. Hernandez stopped by Citrus College to share his journey from working in the fields to soaring among the stars.

Growing up, Hernandez was raised between Mexico and California. His parents were migrant farm workers from Michoacán, Mexico who had wed at just 14 years old. Together they had four children in which Jose was the youngest.

Alongside his parents and siblings, Hernandez would spend most the year picking from crops throughout California. Once the picking season was over, the Hernandez family would return home to Mexico for three months before returning back to California to pick again.

Since the Hernandez family had such a nomad lifestyle, the Hernandez children were forced to go to different schools throughout the course of the year. This made learning English very hard for Hernandez but he finally conquered the English language at 12 years old. The challenge of learning English was also what helped pushed Hernandez towards math and science.

Hernandez’s life then changed forever when a teacher finally sat down with his parents to discuss his education. His teacher expressed to his parents that the best thing they could do for his education was quit going back and forth in-between Mexico and California. His parents decided to take the teacher’s advice and made Stockton, California their permanent new home.

At 10-years-old, Hernandez knew he wanted he wanted to be an Astronaut. He recalls being so fascinated by the stars of the night sky that would greet him as his family would show up to fields for work.
In 1972, Hernandez saw the final Apollo17 from his rabbit-ear TV and watched astronaut Eugene Cernan walk on the surface of the moon in awe. It was this moment that Hernandez knew he wanted to devote his life to exploring space.

Hernandez knew he would have to work hard to be an Astronaut and his parents supported him the whole way through. He eventually graduated high school, went on to get a bachelor’s in electrical engineering from University of the Pacific and then attained his master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from the University of California Santa Barbara.

With all this under his belt, Hernandez filled a position at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Then, Hernandez relocated to Houston, Texas where he would finally take his first position at NASA at the Johnson Space Center.

Once at NASA, Hernandez applied to be an Astronaut eleven times before finally being selected in 2004. After two years of intensive training and various assignments, Hernandez was finally assigned as a mission specialist on STS-128, working on the International Space Station.

August 28, 2009 was the day that STS-128 launched into space and all of Hernandez’s dreams came true. Hernandez was in space for 14 days and was even the first person to tweet from space in both English and Spanish.

Hernandez is an incredible example of the American dream and a reminder for students of all cultures to never give up.

What brought you to Citrus?

Well I was invited here by the Dr. Tolano-Leveque to come and speak to the students and share my experiences. I think if you look at the cross section of students at Citrus College, there’s probably a lot of similarities of me growing up, and how they’re growing up. So if anything, I want them to take away the message that anything is possible regardless of your socioeconomic situation.

What made you want to become an astronaut?

It started when I was 10-years-old. I was watching the very last mission of the Apollo era, it was Apollo 17. You can imagine a 10-year-old boy looking at a black and white TV with good ol’ vacuum tube technology, that takes about five minutes to warm up before you get to see the picture, with rabbit ears antennas on top holding it to improve the reception, and watching Gene Cernan walk on the surface of the moon. When I saw him I would [then] go outside, look up, see the moon, come back inside and hear Walter Cronkite, narrating the moon walk and then hearing Cernan talk to mission control in Houston. I was hooked and I said ‘that’s what I want’.

You applied to be an astronaut eleven times before you were finally selected, what was it that made you keep going and never give it?

I think what’s important is the journey and not the destination. I started applying to the astronaut program, when I had my five years experience and I met the minimum requirements. I loved what I was doing and so to me it wasn’t like I was wasting my time. I was doing what I loved and I looked at all this stuff with the attitude of looking at the glass half-full instead of half-empty.

I would ask myself, ‘what’s the worst thing that could happen from me wanting to be an astronaut?’ Wanting to be an astronaut forced me to go to college, forced me to get my bachelor’s degree, forced me to get my graduate degree, forced me to get a nice paying job, so if I didn’t get selected it’s not a bad consultation price and I love what I’m doing so that’s why I tell folks, don’t just look at saying I want to be ‘this.’ You’re not going to enjoy the journey on the way and that’s 95 percent of the whole thing, that last five percent is when you finally get there.

What was your favorite moment in space?

I think when I unbuckled my seatbelt, floated out of my seat for the first time, pushed against the wall and did my best Superman impersonation floating towards the window. I was thinking in my head that only 485 people have seen the world from this perspective and I’m going be 486.

What the scariest moment in space?

I think the scariest moment always is blastoff. You’ve got hundreds of thousands of gallons of combustible fuel. You got two solid rocket motors that when they start, they don’t turn off. So you know you’re going somewhere but you don’t know where. And you go from 0 to 17,500 mph in eight and a half minutes. It’s the best ride Disneyland could ever hope to design. It’s great, believe me. It puts a lot of pressure on your body [but] it’s sustainable.

What aspect of space interest you the most?

The aspect of discovery, of pushing the envelope of science and technology.

Do you believe in aliens?

I believe in extraterrestrial life, yeah [laughs]. Just think about it, when you look up into the sky at night time, you see nothing but stars. Each one of those stars is like our sun and there’s billions of stars out there.

If you just take the cases where these stars have planets then there’s hundreds of millions of cases, and then if you take the cases that have planets in the habitable zone as we know it, of carbon origin like us, then there’s still tens of millions of cases. So how egotistical for us to think that we’re the only ones in the universe.

Since it is Hispanic Heritage Month, and you are of Mexican descent,  we want to know what the word  “heritage” means to you?

It’s having pride of who you are. I came from a Latino background. My parents are from Mexico. I love the country of Mexico but I love the United States too, it’s my home but that doesn’t mean I can’t love my heritage. The culture that my parents taught me, I try to instill that in my kids. To me that’s what it means, it means being proud of who you are and where you come from.