Trying, Flying, Seeing
Never forget that there is good happening all the time, all around you, that you may not see.
Jose´ M. Hernández journey to space lasted over two decades.
The son of Mexican migrant workers was rejected 11 times by NASA before
becoming a part of the 19th class of astronauts in 2004.
“I was 42 when I got selected,” he said in the video. “I started applying when I was 20.”
He remembers the exact moment that he decided he was going to Space.
“I was hoeing a row of sugar beets in a field near Stockton, California, and I heard
on my transistor radio that Franklin Chang-Diaz (the first Hispanic astronaut) had
been selected for the Astronaut Corps,” which occurred while he was a senior
in high school.
And then, as an astronaut, Hernández discovered something wonderful.
“We were flying over North America and you can tell Canada, the United States
and Mexico [are] there, but what struck me as something of beauty was that you
couldn’t tell where Canada ended and the U.S. began, or where the U.S. ended
and Mexico began,” he said.
“I had to leave this world to come to the conclusion that borders are a
human-made concept.”
In 2005, Hernández began helping others pursue their dreams in science,
technology, engineering and math through his nonprofit organization
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