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Questions and Answers:
Cady Coleman '83 How did you prepare to become an astronaut while you were an MIT student? I believe in being armed with the tools that you might need for the future, and when I was at MIT, I wasn't sure what that future would be. A lecture by Sally Ride made me realize that being an astronaut was actually with the scope of reality--but really--who gets a job like this??? So I was trying to be prepared for a lot of things. Mostly, I tried to be assertive about taking advantage of the opportunities that a place like MIT provides: undergraduate research, jobs in chemistry, getting to know some of the interesting people around campus and seeing what they are excited about. There is a certain amount of pain, suffering, and hard work associated with an education at MIT--why not make sure that you get to do some of the good stuff that goes along with that!!?? I think it actually takes practice to take advantage of opportunity--and those undergraduate years are a great time to start. What was it like working with so many MIT folks on the Chandra launch and actually pushing the button to release the Chandra into space? When you graduate from a place like MIT, you become a member of a family. When I started training for STS-93 and met all the folks from MIT and from the Chandra control center, it was a like coming home. There is an excitement that pervades the hallways at the Institute--everywhere you look, you see people who are excited about what they are doing, and each of them is doing their own kind of exploration. It was great to be back! I loved being part of the Chandra team. On STS-93, launching Chandra was the culmination of the dreams of a great many people. Some had spent their entire careers getting Chandra into orbit. When you go to space, you always bring a lot of people with you in spirit, and on STS-93 I had a lot of wonderful astronomers right there with me on the flight deck as I carried out the telescope checkout and pulled the deploy switch. Now, as Chandra sends us discovery after discovery and surprise after surprise, I am extremely proud to have played a part in a mission that continues to live on, long after our return home. As an astronaut, you are engaged in the newest discoveries about space. What's most exciting areas from your perspective? The space program covers a lot of different areas, and I am excited about a lot of them. That's one of the reasons that I love my job. Every day and every mission is a little different, but they have one thing in common--I am always learning something. During the Chandra mission, I started to fill in the holes in my head where astronomy is supposed to live. Now I am working in Mission Control as the astronaut Capcom--the person who speaks to the astronauts in space and acts as an interface between them and all the folks on the ground. I'm learning about shuttle and space station systems, and I am also getting a bird's eye view of what it is like to live and work in space. I can't tell you how much it makes me want to go back! Right now, the International Space Station is the next step in our space exploration future. I am looking forward to being a part of its assembly and also hope to spend a few months up there doing microgravity experiments. The ISS is not the destination though, it is merely a stepping stone in Low Earth Orbit in our journey to explore the universe we live in. I am confident that we are on our way to Mars--within my lifetime, and other places that we haven't even discovered yet, although those further places may be the legacy that we leave our children. A last note about how MIT fits into all of this. I've always felt that places like MIT create the future. MIT puts the resources together with the people--faculty and students alike--who will be inventing our future. It's important for all of us to remember that at times when we are discouraged and feel that our world has limits that we can't overcome, whether they be personal, financial, or logistical, or those laws of physics that we learned in 8.01! We have been blessed with the skills to build the future--and I can't wait to see where we end up!
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Institute of Technology