A former NASA astronaut with Hawaii ties was in Honolulu on Monday to talk story about how STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) should play a significant role in students’ lives.

It’s critical to encourage youth to explore STEM, said Mark Polansky, who piloted three space shuttle missions before he retired in 2012. “It’s critically important that everybody be exposed and understand the role that they have in STEM and in technology in the future,” he said.

Polansky emphasized to the youths that the path to becoming an astronaut started with a STEM education.

More than 350 people came to hear Polansky, 59, share his experiences in space at the Maryknoll Community Center. Maryknoll School hosted the talk as it prepares to launch its Mx Scholar Program for STEM & Aerospace in the 2016-2017 school year.

Maryknoll President Perry Martin said the program will be the only one of its kind in Hawaii. It’s slated to incorporate an advanced curriculum for high school students, mentoring and aerospace training on flight simulators and Civil Air Patrol airplanes.

Martin said the school invited Polansky to come to Hawaii because he is “a leader who developed his passion from STEM education.”

Polansky served in the Air Force as a test and fighter pilot before he joined NASA as an instructor and research pilot at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. In 1996 he was selected as an astronaut.

Five years later Polansky went on his first mission as a pilot for the space shuttle Atlantis. In 2006 and 2009 he served as commander for the shuttles Discovery and Endeavour, respectively.

He logged almost 1,000 hours in space.

Polansky, the only NASA astronaut of Korean descent — his mother is Korean and his father is Caucasian — earned a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Purdue University in Indiana.

He was named after his late grandfather Mark Choo, who immigrated to Hawaii from Korea with his grandmother Carrie Kim. His grandparents raised his mother, Edith Choo, a Roo-sevelt High School alumna, and his two aunts in Kaimuki.

During Monday’s event, on a large projector screen Polansky showed attendees footage of the 2009 launch of space shuttle Endeavour, his last space shuttle mission, to help construct the International Space Station.

Polansky said he still gets “a little bit of goose bumps” when he watches a shuttle launch. Parents and their children intently listened as he shared details of his work in space — such as using tethers to tie down equipment to keep it from floating away.

Polansky said that, orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes, they kept track of their schedule by using a watch set to Greenwich mean time. As commander his role was similar to a parent, he said, making sure his fellow crew members slept. It was challenging for them to go to sleep because they were so “amped up” to be in space.

Polansky said the success of each mission was based on a team effort by tens of thousands of people with various roles such as ground control crews and workers who made sure spacesuits wouldn’t malfunction.

Before and after his presentation, parents and their children eagerly lined up to meet and take photos with him.

Wearing a dark gray T-shirt emblazoned with the NASA logo, Matthew Mangold, 16, of Ewa Beach brought a wooden model rocket to the event, and Polansky signed it.

Mangold attended the presentation with his father, Rob, after he heard about the event through the Hawaii Wing Civil Air Patrol, where Mangold is part of the West Oahu Composite Squadron cadet program.

“I felt honored to meet him in person,” said Mangold, a junior at Campbell High School.

His father, a retired Japan Airlines pilot, said his son’s interest in aviation piqued when he attended Campbell as a freshman and joined the JROTC program.

Mangold said Polansky has inspired him to become an Air Force pilot and NASA astronaut. “Hopefully, I’ll be sent on a mission on Mars.”