Gadgetory

my name's Leland Melvin former astronaut now working to help inspire the next generation of explorers my parents exposed me to so many things as a child from sports to creating Lego blocks to building campers to to music I give most of my props to my dad he was my mentor he was my hero you know just really really helped a lot sports was a really big part of my life so this is a picture of me catching or dropping a touchdown pass in zone it my homecoming game when there was a scout from the University of Richmond looking at me drop this pass and started walking out of the stadium but he heard the crowd screaming the second time my coach believed in me gave me another chance to catch the winning touchdown pass and that one pass resulted in a full scholarship to the University of Richmond I was finishing my master's degree at the University of Virginia and I went to a career fair and a woman at the NASA booth said hey you come work for NASA my feet I'm like mark NASA and she just convinced me that I need to come down check it out so I went down I looked at it this is pretty cool I worked at NASA for about I think about seven or eight years and a friend of mine who wanted Ben asked her I said yeah you'd be a great astronaut I'm like what are you talking about yeah you know me astronaut and that same year my boy Charlie Kamara he got in then I saw what he was doing as flying jets he was inspiring kids he was to be flying in space one day and I said wow that's the ultimate gig and so I applied the next year I got in and it was just just incredible to Train on the ground you go down into a pool it's about 30 feet deep well let's try - letting me down I realized that this little styrofoam pad was not in my helmet my end ask the test director to turn the volume up in the headset and from that point on I heard nothing but static I went deaf the doctors from around the world no one knew what happened to me slowly started getting better hearing came back still hearing impaired and this year I went to Washington work in education and that's when we lost space shuttle Columbia seven of my friends were in space shuttle Columbia that broke up coming over the Texas sky one of the mission specialists was David Brown but I went to his parents home the night of the accident to consult them his father said to me with tears in his eyes I said Leland the biggest tragedy would be if we don't continue to fly in space to carry on their legacy now at this point I'm not flying because they've told me I'm medically disqualified but as we fly around the country to go to the different moral services the chief flight surgeon rich Williams he says I'm going to sign your waiver to fly this will be your testimony to the world and today with that you're clear to land it's 17,500 miles per hour if I die one planet every 90 minutes nothing to prepare you for the views that you'll see from the space station I mean it's the colors are just so vibrant just looking down at the planet and looking deep into the heavens and the stars and the planets it's just it's just so stunning connecting the dots with building creating the robotics during the space I've never really synthesized all those activities to a final job or final goal sometimes we don't believe in yourself other people do they give you a second chance and I think that's been a theme through my life you know giving being given a second chance and now I'm helping inspire the next generation of explorers my name is Lila Millman and this is my story