/news-archive/tag/duane-carey/ 糖心Vlog传媒 Little Rock Tue, 01 Mar 2016 18:35:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 /news-archive/2016/03/01/astronaut-inspires-youth-higher-education/ Tue, 01 Mar 2016 18:35:33 +0000 /news/?p=63597 ... Astronaut inspires youths to pursue higher education]]> Duane 鈥淒igger鈥� Carey credits education as the defining element that led a child who grew up in public housing in St. Paul, Minnesota, to a successful career as an astronaut who piloted a shuttle mission to service the Hubble Space Telescope in 2002. 鈥淲hy would NASA want a kid from the projects who didn鈥檛 like science?鈥� Carey asked a crowd of 175 people, including 75 middle school and junior high students from local schools, during a Feb. 25 colloquium at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. 鈥淚 had that magic piece of paper,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 had that Master of Science degree in my back pocket. It didn鈥檛 matter how I grew up. If you give yourself that power, you have that the rest of your life.鈥� Three groups of local middle and junior high school students visited 糖心Vlog传媒LR to hear Carey鈥檚 speech. One of the students from Cloverdale Middle School鈥檚 Aerospace Club asked Carey about the most amazing thing he saw in space. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 describe how beautiful it is to see the Earth from space. I cannot explain why the Earth is beautiful, but you never get tired of looking at the Earth from space,鈥� he said. William Grafton, a seventh- and eighth-grade aerospace teacher at Cloverdale Middle School, was glad his students could hear Carey鈥檚 journey to become an astronaut. 鈥淭his was a great opportunity for the kids to see how a normal person becomes an astronaut,鈥� Grafton said. 鈥淚 wanted my students to see that. Everyone thinks astronauts are these super amazing people, but ordinary people become astronauts, too.鈥� Carey spent most of his childhood with his mother and two younger siblings. His father left when he was 6, and Carey developed an aversion to school. 鈥淪chool felt like a prison to me. When that bell went off at the end of the day, I felt like I was finally free to do what I wanted,鈥� he said, adding that he regrets not putting more emphasis on school when he was younger. 鈥淚 tell middle school kids that this is the time when kids start to make important choices,鈥� he said. 鈥淒o I take the minimum-required math course or do I take the much-feared advanced class? Sometimes you learn the most from the hardest things. I have found that learning math makes learning other things easier.鈥� Carey graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor鈥檚 degree in aerospace engineering and mechanics in 1981 and a master鈥檚 degree in aerospace engineering in 1982. He received his commission from the Reserve Officer Training Corps in 1981 and graduated from undergraduate pilot training in 1983. He flew over 30 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm over Iraq. In 1991, he was selected to attend the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California. Having been selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996, Carey completed two years of training and evaluation at in Houston before qualifying for flight assignment as a pilot. Carey logged more than 10 days in space during his first space flight. In 2002, he served as pilot on STS-109 Columbia during the fourth servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope. 鈥淣o mission before had ever attempted to do five consecutive spacewalks in five consecutive days,鈥� he said. 鈥淯sually, the demands are so arduous on the crew that you take a day off between spacewalks, but we signed up to do five in a row.鈥� The crew of STS-109 successfully upgraded the Hubble Space Telescope, leaving it with a new power unit, a new camera, and new solar arrays. STS-109 orbited the Earth 165 times, and covered 3.9 million miles in over 262 hours. Having retired from NASA in 2004, Carey travels with his wife, Cheryl, advocating for the importance of education and exploration programs. When the weather permits, they travel on motorcycles and camp outside. Carey and his wife have plans of continuing this nomadic lifestyle through 鈥淥ne World, One Child, One Dream.鈥� Their mission is to reach children in every nation on Earth via motorcycle travel. After fixing up two motorcycles, the couple eventually hopes to advocate the importance of education to the people of Mexico and South America. 鈥淵ou see what education did for me. It gave me all the opportunities I could ever wish for. If you want to see the future of America, go to a school,鈥� he said. The colloquium was sponsored by the, based at 糖心Vlog传媒LR. For more information on Duane Carey, visit. In the photo, former astronaut Duane “Digger” Carey speaks to a student about his 2002 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope during a colloquium at 糖心Vlog传媒LR on Feb. 25.聽]]> /news-archive/2016/02/16/astronaut-duane-digger-carey/ Tue, 16 Feb 2016 22:36:22 +0000 /news/?p=63495 ... Astronaut Duane “Digger” Carey visits 糖心Vlog传媒LR]]> Former astronaut Duane 鈥淒igger鈥� Carey will discuss his 2002 mission to the Hubble Space Telescope during a visit to the University of Arkansas at Little Rock on Feb. 25. He will also talk about聽his education in aerospace engineering and his career as a test and fighter pilot in the U.S. Air Force, where he logged more than 4,300 hours in more than 35 types of aircraft. The presentation is free and open to the public and will be followed by a question and answer session. The talk, sponsored by the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium, will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 25, in the Engineering and Information Technology Building Auditorium. 鈥淒igger, as he likes to be called, served as pilot on the space shuttle Columbia, and they had to calculate how to rendezvous with the Hubble Space Telescope satellite,鈥� said Dr. Keith Hudson, director of the. 鈥淎 lot of things can go wrong if two objects collide in space. Everything had to be just perfect.鈥� Carey will discuss the orbital mechanics involved during the rendezvous between the space shuttle and Hubble telescope. Orbital, or flight mechanics, involves the study of the motions of artificial satellites and space vehicles under the influence of forces such as gravity, atmospheric drag, and thrust. After graduating from the University of Minnesota-Minneapolis, earning a bachelor鈥檚 degree in aerospace engineering and mechanics in 1981 and a master鈥檚 degree in aerospace engineering in 1982, Carey received his commission from the Reserve Officer Training Corps in 1981 and graduated from undergraduate pilot training in 1983. His flight experience includes the A-10A during tours at England Air Force Base, Louisiana, and Suwon Air Base in the Republic of Korea. He completed F-16 training in 1988 and was assigned to Torrejon Air Base in Spain. He flew more than 30 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm over Iraq. In 1991, he was selected to attend the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California. After graduation in 1992, he worked as an F-16 experimental test pilot and system safety officer at Edwards Air Force Base, where he specialized in performance and flying qualities testing of the F-16. Having been selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996, Carey completed two years of training and evaluation at in Houston before qualifying for flight assignment as a pilot. He was first assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Spacecraft Systems/Operations Branch and later served as a Shuttle CAPCOM in Mission Control. Carey logged more than 10 days in space during his first space flight. From March 1 to March 12, 2002, he served as a pilot on STS-109 Columbia during the fourth servicing mission for the Hubble Space Telescope. The crew of STS-109 successfully upgraded the Hubble Space Telescope, leaving it with a new power unit, a new camera and new solar arrays. STS-109 orbited the Earth 165 times and covered 3.9 million miles during the course of more than 260 hours. After a successful career with the Air Force and NASA, Carey left NASA in 2004 to pursue other interests. Carey and his wife, Cheryl, currently travel around the country, educating young people about the importance of America鈥檚 exploration and research programs.]]>