John Phillips returns from 2005 mission.

By Donna Hemmila

Editor's note: The shuttle Discovery's mission was delayed five times and launched Sunday, March 15.

When the next space shuttle Discovery mission launches, it will carry two University of California graduates on board.

For astronaut John Phillips, a UCLA alumnus, the flight will mark his third journey into space. Former middle school math and science teacher Joseph Acaba, a UC Santa Barbara graduate, will be taking his first trip into orbit. The two are on a 14-day mission, scheduled to blast off on Feb. 19, to deliver a giant solar panel to the International Space Station. That addition to the space station will increase its electricity–generating capacity, allowing larger crews to live and conduct research on the craft.

This is just the latest contribution UC alumni and researchers have made to advance the physical and intellectual frontiers of space. Beginning with Apollo 7 flight-crew member Walter Cunningham, who graduated from UCLA in 1961, 20 UC alumni have become astronauts. In addition, many UC research labs have made important contributions to the NASA program. In addition to the many campus space-related academic programs, UC San Diego is headquarters to the California Space Grant Consortium, an education and work force development partnership between NASA and 19 affiliated universities. UC Santa Cruz partners with the NASA Ames Research Center to manage a university research center at Moffett Field in Silicon Valley.

From the earliest days of U.S. space exploration, UC research labs have made important contributions to the NASA program. UC Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory got off the ground in 1958. The research center continues to play a significant role in advancing space science, building instruments for space missions and collecting their data. The lab hosts the Center for Space Science Education, which offers resources for K-12 and college educators and the general public. In collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the Space Science Lab is exploring dark energy – one of the greatest mysteries of space.

Saul Perlmutter, a UC Berkeley astrophysicist, was the principal investigator of the Berkeley Lab group that in 1998 discovered the accelerating expansion of the universe. Dark energy, which makes up three-quarters of the energy of the universe, is driving that expansion.

Perlmutter and other lab scientists are working on the Joint Dark Energy Mission that NASA and the Department of Energy are sponsoring. The mission is expected to launch in 2015.

Joseph Acaba trains for his first mission.

Lure of space travel. "A surprising number of students do aspire to be astronauts," said Christopher Russell, a professor in the UCLA Department of Earth and Space Sciences and in the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics. "Not all of them will make it, of course, but it is a motivating factor for young people to go into science."

Those students benefit from UC's affiliations with the space program by the wealth of thesis-subject material the research collaborations create, Russell said. But the relationship is mutually beneficial.

"The government labs have difficulty bringing young people in, and their researchers are getting older," said Russell. "We have a core of young researchers and great faculty. We've got great people working at the university, and that's an asset to NASA."

Understanding our universe

NASA's Dawn mission is a journey in space and time. That's how Christopher Russell, the mission's principal investigator, conceived of this groundbreaking trip through the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The unmanned spacecraft, launched in 2007, is the first mission to orbit two planetary bodies: the dwarf planet Ceres and the asteroid Vesta. Russell, head of UCLA's space physics group, first proposed the mission in 1994 and spent the next several years refining its objectives and scale to get NASA funding for the eight-year, 3-billion-mile expedition. "Finally, the stars aligned, so to speak," Russell said. "Vesta and Ceres came closer together, and it became possible to explore one and then the other. That idea intrigued NASA." The Dawn spacecraft is expected to orbit Vesta in 2011 for nine months before reaching orbit around Ceres in 2015. The two bodies were among the first formed in Earth's solar system. Scientists working on the mission – including those from Los Alamos Lab – believe they hold secrets to the formation of the planets. "What we're trying to do is explore backwards in time," said Russell. "We're doing planetary geology. The inventory is interesting, but we're not going to find a planet paved with gold." However, Russell believes Ceres may have a large supply of water and could someday provide an oasis for space travelers. Russell has been an investigator on NASA missions since 1973. The International Astronomical Union in 2008 recognized his work by naming an asteroid after him.

UC training ground. Both Acaba and Phillips credit their UC connections as a factor in achieving their dreams of space travel.

"I always wanted to get into the exploration business," said Phillips of his boyhood aspirations. "If I was born 100 years ago, I would have been an arctic explorer."

Phillips was 7 years old when Congress created NASA in 1958, a year after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first manmade satellite to orbit Earth.

Phillips first applied to the astronaut program after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy and serving as a pilot. He applied again as a graduate student at UCLA, where in 1984 he earned a master's in geophysics and space physics and a doctorate in those fields in 1987. His thesis was on the Pioneer spacecraft, and Russell was his mentor. Afterwards Phillips landed 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.

In orbit. Phillips joined NASA in 1996 and took his first space flight five years later. In 2005, he lived for six months on the space station as its flight engineer, and he's looking forward to getting back to his old digs even if it's for a much shorter time.

His 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."

A word of advice Acaba said he is getting from veterans like Phillips is to take the time to enjoy the experience of being in space.

Role models. Acaba joined NASA in 2004 through the educator-astronaut program, which trains K-12 teachers for space travel. Even if he didn't make it, Acaba said, just the application process was a great learning experience for his Florida middle school students. One special motivating teacher can make such a difference
in a student's life, he said.

Acaba earned a bachelor's in geology at UC Santa Barbara and remembers 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.

"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 it takes that special teacher to motivate students. UC Santa Barbara has a whole bunch of those kinds of teachers."

Read about UC San Diego alumna astronaut Megan McArthur, who will fly on the space shuttle Atlantis in May and UC Davis astronauts Steven Robinson and Tracy Caldwell.

View list of UC alumni astronauts

Donna Hemmila is editor of Our University.