Mike Massimino: A Citizen of Earth

I was inspired to become an astronaut almost fifty years ago when I watched Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I was 6 years old and I watched it live on TV. As a child, I was very interested in space and my parents were very encouraging about my goal to become an astronaut.

I’m afraid of heights. I guess most people probably wouldn’t expect an astronaut to be afraid of heights.

Well, I’m okay so long as I’m moving. So being in a spaceship, or on a zipline or anything like that doesn’t cause too much problem! But, for example, I don’t enjoy looking over the edge of a building.

I think that whilst it is, of course, extraordinary, it is also very stressful. It is just amazing what you get to see.

I am reading about about the 1969 NY Mets. I’m a big baseball fan and it was sent to me by my editor. It’s a good book.

I think my favourite book as a child was Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. I really liked Jules Verne’s books, they were set in the future but not really science fiction. They took place in their own time but they’d always contain technology what might be genuinely plausible in the future.

I was at home in Atlanta, working for Georgia Tech. It was a Monday morning and the phone rang, and that’s how I found out.

Megan McArthur actually did, she took Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen with her. It was a gift from her husband and so she took it as a memento. Megan loves reading and that is one of her favourite books. But people do read books in space, especially on the International Space Station – it’s a great way to pass time.

The last book that I purchased was First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong by James Hansen. I saw the movie and then I saw the book when I was walking through an airport, so I picked up. I thought the movie was great and a pretty good portrayal of Neil Armstrong.

I think Apollo 13 was very accurate, in fact, it is probably the most accurate out of all the movies in space I’ve seen. Most of the others do have some wacky moments that aren’t exactly accurate, but they’re movies – so they’re supposed to be entertaining, not necessarily accurate.

I think we’re very lucky to be here, we’re living in a paradise. I don’t think of myself as just a New Yorker or an America, but as a citizen of Earth. I think of home as being our planet, not necessarily just one part of it.

Well, we may actually be heading that way with companies like Virgin Galatic and SpaceX. It will be pretty expensive for a while, but that price will probably come down. So hopefully we’re heading that way where more and more people will get that perspective.

I would have to say The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe. Not just the book, but the movie too. I actually saw the movie before I read the book, it’s my favourite movie of all time. I must have watched it over 100 times. After I saw the movie I went and got the book and found it to be very inspirational. It rekindled my interest in becoming an astronaut. After I saw the moon landings I had the interest, but I wasn’t sure if I’d ever pursue it as something to really do. But when I saw the movie and read the book it got me going again in that direction.

The best book I’ve read in the last six months is Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand. I thought it was a really good story. Again, I had seen the movie a long time ago so I read the book and it was good.

Before I was selected as an astronaut and after I was in grad school I took a job at Georgia Tech for a year and then I was picked during that year. I thought I’d be at Georgia Tech for a long time, but I got picked by NASA so I left. I really enjoyed my experience and felt pretty good about my job at Georgia Tech. So I thought to myself if you never become an astronaut you have something else you like to do. Then after I became an astronaut I kind of had the sense that that job would come to a conclusion before I was ready to retire, so I would have another phase of life where I wanted to work. So I always knew I’d go back to academics when my time with NASA was completed for me.

I would give them a book about baseball in New York back in the 1920s, but I can’t remember the title. But I think it’s a good read on our culture, some of our history and some of our sports heroes. I’d give them Apollo 13 by James Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger, which was originally called ‘Lost Moon’ but was renamed when the movie came out. Finally, I guess I’d give them The Bible, something like that – give them a religious book to show how we used to explain things.

I enjoy telling stories, maybe more than most of the other astronauts. I felt a book would be a good way to get a lot of my stories out there and tell people what it’s like to be an astronaut. It’s a little different because I’m used to telling stories where I can read the reaction of the audience where I can change things depending on them, but when you publish a book it’s final and that’s what is going out there. It was something I wanted to do and I found people who wanted to help and it all worked out.

I have actually published a second book which is the young reader version of my book, it’s called Spaceman: The True Story of a Young Boy’s Journey to Becoming an Astronaut by Mike Massimino. I’m more or less rewriting it but condensing it down, so taking some stories out, adding some in. It’s given me a chance to include some stories that weren’t in the current book.