Astronaut visits to share outer space memories

     GCSU’s American Democracy Project, in association with The New York Times’ Knowledge Network and the Apple i-Institute, hosted the third annual Coverdell Institute Symposium during the week of April 16, fostering student success and achievement through a series of inspirational speakers, workshops and forums.  One of this year’s speakers included spaceman Dr. Greg Olsen.
     Olsen is only the third private citizen to ever orbit space. He is also the president of GHO Ventures, an entrepreneu, and a scientist who constantly tour across the country in hopes to inspire students to pursue their dreams.
     Olsen first pursued space travel in June of 2003. After more than 900 hours of intense training he was cleared to launch the Russian Soyuz rocket TMA-Z from the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Center in Moscow on October 1, 2005 at the age of 60. He then docked on October 3 at the International Space Station (ISS) where he stayed for 10 days and logged almost 4 million miles of weightless travel.
     “It’s the most wonderful feeling I’ve had since the birth of my two daughters,” Olsen said.
     Olsen spoke to enthusiastic audiences which comprised of students, faculty, and some community members. He talked about his experience in space sharing pictures of candid moments such as sleeping, drinking water, and even going to the bathroom at zero gravity.
     “We wore Huggie diapers during the launch,” Olsen said. “ And we used them.”
     Olsen also shared some funny videos of drinking water while in space. Water resembled blobs of liquid floating around while Olsen chomped it a la Pacman.
     Elysse Lewandowski, a GCSU sophomore, was really amused by his experience.
     “He showed us a picture of him sleeping and he was strapped to a sleeping bag and sleeping standing up. He didn’t even need a pillow,” Lewandoski said. “It’s a really neat experience that he had.”
     However, Olsen wasn’t always brilliant. Part of the reason why he speaks to many students is because he wasn’t always so dedicated. Olsen admitted that in high school he had terrible grades.
     “Failure is inevitable,” Olsen said. “But it’s what you do with it. Do you give up or do you try again?”
     Olsen was initially rejected from the space program due to his age and a minor health complication that eventually proved to be false. He advised the audience not to give up.
     “I failed high school trigonometry,” Olsen joked. “I never imagined that someone from Princeton, N.J., would go up to space.”
     Kevin McCuen, a dual marketing and management major, was among the audience. He asked Olsen how much it costs to be a spaceman for 10 days, just in case he got the notion to do it himself.
     “He [Olsen] said it was around $20 million dollars when he went,” McCuen said. “I guess I better start saving my money.”
Olsen said that his experience is so tremendous that he would do it again if given the chance. But for now, he is just as happy touring the nation and sharing his experiences.
     “I feel like the luckiest person for having this experience,” Olsen said. “ The least I can do is to inspire some other kid and let them know that they can do it too.”

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 27 2007. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry