by Matt Hampton
When that happened, Franklin Square native Mike Massimino — a H. Frank Carey High School graduate — had the center seat in the middle deck.
The mission represents the second time that Massimino, 47, will be participating in a NASA operation. As a specialist, he will participate in two spacewalks — each about six hours long — during the 11-day mission several miles above the earth’s surface. He will also be charged with operating the robotic arm affixed to the Atlantis, which is vital in repair operations to the Hubble Space Telescope.
Massimino began astronaut training in 1996, after attending Columbia University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked for several masters degrees and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, according to information provided by NASA. He has logged more than 10 days in space.
The purpose of Massimino’s current mission is maintenance for the telescope, one of four “space observatories” that have been beaming images of the observable universe down to earth for nearly two decades. Mission STS-125, as it is known, will be the last shuttle mission to the telescope that has provided scientist and space exploration enthusiasts with fantastic views. It’s also, according to NASA officials, one of the most dangerous missions in the history of the space program. The original launch was scheduled for 2008, but had to be rescheduled — it was only put back on the table after the space administration decided to keep another shuttle launch on standby to rescue Massimino and the rest of the crew in the event that something goes wrong.
According to published reports, the area around the Hubble Space Telescope has all the makings of a space graveyard — with debris littering the area, in-orbit collisions are a hazard, but one that the crew has agreed to face in the interest of science.
Massimino has a particularly important job during the week-and-a-half long mission — swapping parts and making adjustments to the telescope that will keep the Hubble working well into the next decade.
Massimino, in an interview with NASA officials earlier this year, said getting ready to go into space is an incredibly tense and exciting endeavor.
“You get real excited, it’s like anticipating Christmas,” Massimino said. “It’s an extraordinary opportunity. It’s a lot of work and it’s a lot of responsibility to go up there and do all this, but it is just an incredible experience.”
He said growing up just outside the city, watching the moon landing and the Mets in the World Series were two pretty big events for him.
“It first hit me when I was a little guy, when I was, 6 years old is when, people first walked on the moon, when Neil Armstrong took those first steps that everyone remembers,” he said. “I just thought it was really cool. I thought this was even bigger than baseball. In New York, the Mets are winning the World Series in 1969— that was pretty big — but I would say the moon landing was right up there with the Mets in the World Series.”
Massimino also said growing up in Franklin Square — in close proximity to family — was a big part of what made him who he is today.
“It was a really good place to grow up. I had a lot of family around me, too. You know, most Italian families don’t move very far,” he said. “So I had my aunts and uncles across the street and around the corner, I used to see them a lot and they were like second mothers and fathers to me, and my cousins were like extra brothers and sisters. So it was a really fun childhood.”
Just hours before breaking away from Earth’s gravity, Massimino was keeping NASA junkies updated on his thoughts and feelings through his Twitter feed, located at http://twitter.com/Astro_Mike.
“I’m going to put my spacesuit on, next stop: Earth Orbit,” he wrote just hours before the launch. Massimino has also chronicled his crew’s robotics refresher courses, as well as the sleep shift astronauts have to make before they make their journeys into space.
Despite all the preparation and responsibilities associated with being such a huge part of the space program, Massimino told his NASA interviewer that being an astronaut is ultimately a very humbling experience.
“I just, sometimes at night walking the dog or looking around, I look up and figure, ‘hey, you know, a couple months I’ll be headed up there,’” he said. “It’s just such a huge opportunity and a wonderful experience, that yeah, I’m looking forward to again.”
As Atlantis broke free of Earth’s atmosphere with its seven-person crew, it carried Massimino with it, and all of the best wishes of Franklin Square.
