The astronaut who holds the record for most days spent in space told Momilani Elementary School sixth-grade students Tuesday that if he could achieve his dreams, so could they.
"You have to work hard, study hard and enjoy the amazing things that you have in front of you," Michael Fincke, 44, said at a science and technology center in Kapolei. "There’s a whole universe to explore. … Not everybody wants to be an astronaut, but we do want you to succeed in what you do want."
Fincke was invited to speak at the Challenger Center Hawaii by Claude Onizuka, brother of Ellison Onizuka, the Hawaii astronaut killed in the 1986 explosion of the Challenger space shuttle.
"I wish the students were that interested every day," a student teacher in the group joked about the session. "They’re good for the most part, but I think even they knew the privilege they had of being able to listen to this famous astronaut speak to them."
This year marks the 12th anniversary of the Astronaut Onizuka Science Day on Hawaii island and the 27th anniversary of Onizuka’s first flight into space on Jan. 24, 1985. Kona-born Onizuka was the first Asian-American to reach space and the first Air Force flight test engineer to become an astronaut.
"I really wish I had (met him)," Fincke said after his presentation. "I was in college in 1986 when that happened, and I was shocked. I mean, that morning I remember vividly."
Fincke, who has been on three missions and spent 381 days in space, captivated the audience of 62 Pearl City students for 45 minutes with stories about eating, sleeping and exercising in space. He also talked about what it was like building the International Space Station and walked them through a video that outlined space exploration and NASA history, contained footage from his missions and touched on the future of space study and travel.
"He explained it so good that you could almost feel his experiences in space and stuff," Josia Takazono, 12, said. "I liked him explaining the video and how it was in space and stuff because it was pretty cool."
The Challenger Center Hawaii, where the presentation was held, is at Barbers Point Elementary School and operated by the Leeward District of the state Department of Education. It opened in 1993 and serves roughly 5,000 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade students a year. The group there on Tuesday participated in the center’s unique, hands-on program.
"We’re trying to encourage STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education," said Wendell Thomas, a science resource teacher at the center. "We gotta pick up the pace. We need more scientists and mathematicians in our country … and just to raise the standard."
Students have a chance to perform space-themed experiments aboard the "space station" and deliver instructions and interpret data from those experiments back on Earth at the "mission control center."
The students’ mission was to build and land a robotic probe on Halley’s Comet in 2061. The groups had to work together to complete the mission, but students could only communicate with each other via microphone or typed notes.
"It was fun but really, really nerve-wracking," Allison Chang, 11, said. "I’m sort of afraid because we don’t really know if we’ll understand their messages because they didn’t really understand ours."
Lauren Lee, a student teacher at Momilani Elementary who went on the field trip with the class, remembered visiting the Challenger Center while she was a student at Waimanalo Elementary School.
"When I was a student, there was a lot of pressure," Lee said. "But it’s fun being able to watch the students now and see them grow, and how they work under pressure."
With the occasional emergency siren blaring, messages being blabbered over the intercom and general confusion among the students about how to decode those messages, the pressure was evident. But Thomas said the chaos is meant to foster teamwork and problem-solving and communication skills in a scientific and mathematical setting.
Liane Kim, program coordinator for the Challenger Center Hawaii, said the 48 centers are the vision of the family members of those who died in the Challenger explosion.
Fincke said the accident was so shocking "because NASA had never failed before."
"Sometimes failure’s good for you," he said. "Unfortunately it was at an extremely high price, and now all we can do is walk in Ellison’s footsteps … talk to all the schools that Ellison would talk to if he were here. So it’s a big honor and a big responsibility."
