Central coast graduate talks about heading to outer space

Astronauts from NASA’s latest space mission discussed the challenges they’ve faced and what they’re looking forward to while speaking at the SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California ahead of the Crew Dragon mission.

NASA last week assigned the astronauts who will ride the first commercial capsules into orbit next year and bring crew launches back to the U.S. Victor Glover and Christopher Ferguson, both graduates from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, were among the chosen.

“This is my first time going through all of this and so just the opportunity to go to the space station and to be a part of a crew, that is an overwhelming opportunity in and of itself,” said Glover.

SpaceX and Boeing are shooting for a test flight of their capsules by the end of this year or early next, with the first crews flying from Cape Canaveral, Florida, by next spring or summer.

Nine astronauts were named to ride the SpaceX Dragon and Boeing Starliner capsules — five on the first crew flights and four on the second round of missions to the International Space Station.

“I mean this truly is a test pilot’s dream and I’m excited about the whole thing,” added Glover. “And being from southern California it’s really cool to have to come out here and work with SpaceX too. So it’s great all the way around.”

NASA has been paying billions of dollars to SpaceX and Boeing to develop the crew capsules to pick up where the shuttles left off, while also paying billions for cargo deliveries to the space station by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman.

The cargo missions started in 2012.

The crew missions have been delayed repeatedly because of the technical challenges and difficulties of making spacecraft safe for humans.

A recent aborted test by Boeing resulted in leaking engine fuel.