Joseph Acaba trains for his first space flight.

UC's space odyssey continues continues with next shuttle launch

When astronaut Joseph Acaba blasts into space on Feb. 12, he'll be carrying a UC Santa Barbara pennant.

Acaba, who will be taking his first space journey, is the newest in a long line of UC graduates who have been part of the NASA program. Beginning with Apollo 7 flight-crew member Walter Cunningham, who graduated from UCLA in 1961, 20 UC alumni have become astronauts.

Acaba, a former middle school math and science teacher, is on a 14-day Discovery shuttle mission to deliver a giant solar panel to the International Space Station. He'll be joining veteran astronaut and UCLA alumnus John Phillips, who will be making his third flight into orbit. In 2005, Phillips lived for six months on the space station as its flight engineer.

Both view their UC connections as a factor in achieving their dreams of space travel.

"Your time at a university has a huge impact on your life," said Acaba, a California native who along with his brother was the first in his family to attend a university. "At any grade level its takes that special teacher to motivate students. UC Santa Barbara has a whole bunch of those kinds of teachers."

He credits Arthur Sylvester, now an emeritus professor of earth science, for encouraging him to earn a master's degree and for helping him get a scholarship to the University of Arizona.

John Phillips returns from his 2005 mission.
Photo credits/NASA

Phillips was a naval pilot before going to graduate school at UCLA where he earned a master's and then a doctoral degree. His thesis was on the Pioneer spacecraft. Afterwards he had a fellowship at the UC-affiliated Los Alamos National Laboratory and then joined the lab's space program.

"I'm sure those experiences helped me get selected as an astronaut," he said. Phillips' UCLA mentor was Christopher Russell, a professor in the Department of Earth and Space Sciences and the principal investigator on the Dawn Mission, which is exploring the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Phillips' job on this mission is to operate the robotic arm that will move the solar panel into place on the space station. Space travel never gets dull, he said.

"A lot of times, unless something goes wrong, the shuttle launches are on the back pages of the news," said Phillips. "That makes it sound like it's boring and routine. But every time, it's hard and challenging and dangerous."