Live from Space, BU Alum and Astronaut Bob Hines Talks Gravity, Lasagna, NASA Careers
University event lets high school students and others ask questions of astronauts on the International Space Station
By Joel Brown for Bostonia
How is being in space different from Earth?
On the International Space Station (ISS), “you lose something, and you give up on finding it, and two weeks or a month later, it just comes floating by,” NASA astronaut Bob Hines told a Boston University audience Wednesday on a live downlink from the ISS, as he floated weightlessly in front of the camera. “It’s actually one of the funnier things that happens up here.”
Wearing a red Terriers hockey jersey he brought along on his trip to space, Hines (ENG’97) talked about the joys of living in orbit—just looking out the window, for one thing—and demonstrated by turning slow-motion somersaults in midair.
“This could be you,” he told the approximately 500 junior high and high school students in summer science programs at BU and around the Boston area who had gathered in the George Sherman Union Metcalf Ballroom for part of a daylong STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) outreach program, along with some BU and BU Academy students. “Don’t be afraid to set big dreams and go after them and keep reaching for the stars.”
Read the full story in Bostonia.
Banner photo: NASA astronaut Bob Hines (ENG’97) demonstrated space acrobatics with the help of fellow astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti during a live downlink from the International Space Station to the George Sherman Union’s Metcalf Ballroom on Wednesday. Photo by Cyndey Scott.