>> water pressure system activated nine, eight, seven,

six, three, two, one. lift off of space shuttle atlantis. to resupply and do research on the international space station to resupply and do research on the international space station lift off now the things that you dropped are now floating around are amazing you are strapped in and when the engine is cut off is you are accelerating then you stop you feel like you're tumbling forward like you're doing a somersault. so then i floated to the windows and then i could see the rest falling black on -- act to the planet and everything is falling we were trying to see if there were any marks or if anything came

off or if something hits our vehicle like the columbia accident. and then i see the caribbean and the colors of the ocean are so dramatic in blue i can't even describe what i'm looking at then every 90 minutes to see a sunrise and a sunset. this is space. deepness and darkness and blackness look back at the planet and you can see the sun and it is incredible. it changes you. that made me have a shift thinking about the planet and humanity they may not eat the

same food but you want to hug everybody to say we are one race, the human race. i was born and raised in lynchburg virginia i remember my dad always told me how incredible arthur ashe was as a person and a great character so i thought i would be arthur ashe one day and i started to take tennis lessons i started to play and get better and so did arthur ashe was treating five blocks down the street i played in high school but then football got in the way so i got a scholarship to play at the university of richmond my parents like that a little bit

more. so i was a wide receiver at the university of richmond men the professional scout started to look because i had good statistics and we were transporting this team into a winning team for a change so i was drafted to the detroit lions in the 11th round and 86 draft i never imagined playing football in college because i was was all wide receiver on a running team in high school that is not what i aspired to be an nfl football player but i am always up for a challenge and went to training camp i thought that

would be the end of my football career but then the dallas cowboys picked me up for the so i went to the cowboys but then i started graduate school at the university of virginia and i am thinking how do i go to graduate school and play football? my professor said we will take care of that so they videotaped the courses and e-mail them to me and dallas. it's the hardest thing i have ever done in my life but one day i am stretching and i say let's run half speed out and he said okay then i start to see the whole thing go awry because he goes from half speed 10 yards out to run as fast and as far as you can and i injured my leg for the

second time. that was the end of my football career. i went back to school and work for the nasa research center. nasa was looking to recruit a lot more women and minorities at the time to get the numbers up so i was recruited by a woman who was a physicist at a career fair at nasa i look at the booth i said the government job will not pay that much. she said you're going to work at nasa. i said no i'm not that we had this conversation she said help me take my pamphlets to my car. so we go to her card she says think about it.

i do an interview and i look around then i get an offer by the time i get home and i thought they have some cool stuff it was like a campus environment and my interview was incredible he was a physicist and come here and just think and create i would like really? [laughter] that was a good and positive interview to make my experience was phenomenal i remember the first time i realized people did not appreciate the education i had from uva as a technician i was getting stuff made by a technician he said where did

you go to school? i said university of virginia he said no virginia state. no. charlottesville. he said you went to the black school virginia state. i am thinking what is up with this guy? but then i sensed a form of racism a little bit someone doesn't expect you to have achieved certain things and i befriended catherine johnson. she was always positive and no matter what the situation she would talk about there is always a solution to her card and figure it out he had retired when i got there but that was the turning point for me because i joined this group

of african-american scientist and engineers that catherine and the people showed me and mary jackson was a member of the time. i did not know their stories at that time but then to understand truly but i knew they were great people and smart and hard-working and that helped me also to have that trajectory to be excellent and working hard. i worked in the branch that you take light or heat or some types of energy on aerospace vehicles of their damage. so how do you use

nondestructively in a way so you don't have to break it apart to figure it out and i use to work on the space shuttle looking for detection for the leaks so that's why i was interested in the videotape falling back to earth we speed up the process to certify the vehicle to fly again after it comes home and i did that for a little while and my friend said you would be a great astronaut and i was like really? me? he said yes nasa is taking applications for astronauts. i just the application i --dash to the application a way that a friend of mine got in and i said if that knucklehead can get in i can get in so then the next time i applied i got in.

they want to make sure that you can do a certain set of skills. one of the things we are doing at the international space station people have to do space walks really it is a call because you are crawling along the station and to do that training you have to be in a neutral buoyancy it is a 5 million-gallon pool you look like the michelin man in the pills boy -- pills barry doughboy and then aims like it seems like you are floating in space if you're the person who can do that but it sure lifeline. and so we went down 20 feet

and my pad was not in there. i set all try to keep going but i had no effective way to clear my ears so that 25 feet and turn the volume up in the headset and it was nothing but static. they took me out of the pool and took off my helmet the flight surgeon on call that day started to walk towards me when they got my helmet off he touched my right ear and blood was streaming down the side of my face. i had gone completely deaf they rushed me to the hospital with emergency surgery. the doctors didn't know what happened but they told me i would never fly in space. four days before that accident i was here in lynchburg at my parents 35th wedding anniversary i was sitting in front of the holiday inn downtown my cousin and a

friend of hers were in the car and she said i have something to share with you. something is going to happen to you. nobody's going to know why this happens. but you will be cured and you will fly in space and the severe testimony to the world. and i said okay. four days later i was completely deaf. and i remember when i was in the hospital another friend of mine who was at my parents wedding anniversary service remembered what she said and wrote a note to me to say remember what jeanette said and that gave me hope to get through this. and the doctors told me i will not fly. my hearing slowly comes back in about three weeks my left

ear is pretty much gone i have frequency for the right ear. i end up going to washington d.c. to work in education because they needed someone to be the astronaut for the astronaut program so we are up there we start off the program and then the columbia accident happened i am there to console the. one of the mission specialist was there so the night of the accident i go to their home to console them and trying to figure out what i'm going to say and his father said to me with tears in his eyes my son is gone there is nothing you

can do to bring him back but the biggest tragedy is if we don't continue to fly in space. so i have all this emotion. i'm not flying. what am i going to do? so we go to the different services around the country so with that transition back from d.c. to houston he calls me and says i believe in you. here is your waiver to fly in space and then a year and a half later i get assigned.

>> atlantis go with bravo. >> copy. >> throttle up call called the flight engineer and t3 also in the mid deck also kicking off their work week with the monday commute to orbit. >> the photo. [laughter] i was told that you could bring in your family. when you are signed to a mission in your orange pumpkinseed with your family. and i was thinking they are for leg but they are family so i drove my dogs into nasa in a van i gunned the vehicle past the guard after a show my badge i get to the photo lab and i go up the back story --

the backstair backstairs-on the orange suit indigo sitdown and they start running to the photographer and they say start shooting and they both run up one is licking my ear and that became the photo and that is how it happened. >> this is my new addition to the family. the black mass there we picked him up from boston. he is a rescue dog. he is a ridge back and he is very active. but he will honor the legacy of the other two dogs that passed away about four years ago they were road warriors and went on trips with me. he has already made a trip with me from boston and he is

ready for similar adventures. >> we can do more to inspire kids especially those underserved and underrepresented if you look of those engineers that are matriculating from china and india they are fifth or sixth on the list think of the future of society and science technology engineering arts and mathematics because you have to tell the story of those so the day is important so as a country we need to make sure everybody at the table helps to create that technology and brain trust.

for those who will be my book "chasing space" i want you to know this kid from a small town who never aspired to be an astronaut or to do the things that he has done nfl, science, talkshow, and then to let you know with persistence and determination you can do anything

>> this takes a much larger piece than it does anywhere else. we live to eat in new orleans. and then you will hear somebody walking down the street talking about what they had to eat yesterday what they will have for dinner, how they would come on -- cut their duck they just shot at the