GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Some Green Bay students are dreaming of the stars after visiting with a special guest Monday morning.
NASA Astronaut Mark Vande Hei spoke with students at McAuliffe Elementary School about his experiences on the International Space Station.
Back in January, Vande Hei participated in a live virtual feed with the students from the ISS.
After 355 days in space, Vende Hei returned to Earth, setting the record for the longest single spaceflight in history by an American.
Vande Hei shared his path to becoming an astronaut with students.
Before his time with NASA, he was a U.S. Army Colonel, a physics professor at West Point and a combat engineer in Iraq.
Vande Hei believes it’s important to share his journey and his love for space with students.
“I think as human beings it’s really important to explore, and I think that sense of curiosity that we have is something that exploration helps us with, and kids naturally have that. And giving them something to get excited about will, I think, really motivate them to study hard and recognize that the opportunities they have to learn are fantastic.”
McAuliffe school is named after an American astronaut and teacher Christa McAuliffe who died when the Challenger exploded in midair just over a minute after takeoff.
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