Purdue grads to be involved in space mission
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WISH) — Purdue University has a long history of their graduates being involved in space missions. So far 23 graduates have gone to space. That list will increase to three more by next year when more graduates blast off to outer space.
Drew Feustel, Scott Tingle, and Gary Horlacher, all graduates of Purdue will be part of a 2018 NASA flight to the International Space Station.
Space missions often last about four to six months. The mission will involve experiments, maintaining the space station, learning more about how humans live and work in space, among other things.
Dan Dumbacher is a Professor of Engineering and has 33 years of NASA experience. He believes the future is bright when it comes to space exploration.
“Space station is the place where we can go test things, learn things, kind of view it as our camping ground close to home before we take the long camping trip all the way out to Mars,” said Dumbacher.
Maaninee Gupta is a junior and majoring in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering. She hopes her education will one day take her to space too.
“Ideally I would want to go to space, that’s the goal. It went from a dream to a goal right when I came to Purdue and started pursuing my undergraduate studies. If you like what you’re studying and you understand and you put in the effort this is an achievable dream and I hope to follow through with that,” said Gupta.
The Orion space shuttle will take the astronauts to space. Parts of that shuttle was made in Indianapolis and more than 20 states across the state were involved in the making of it.