What: On May 2, NASA astronaut TJ Creamer will speak to students in Lynchburg and Fayetteville, Tenn., about the more than five months he spent aboard the International Space Station, as well as the science investigations being performed on the station today. The event aims to attract and retain the interest of children in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, disciplines to ensure the next generation can accept the full measure of their roles and responsibilities in shaping the future of NASA.
Who: TJ Creamer is the first astronaut to become a payload operations director at NASA’s Payload Operations Integration Center at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. – the command post for research on the space station. Creamer is responsible for guiding the daily activities of station astronauts as they perform experiments in space. Before being named to this position, Creamer traveled 65.2 million miles around the planet while living and working more than five months aboard the space station. He launched aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft Dec. 20, 2009, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, and docked with the station two days later. For the next 161 days, he served as a flight engineer and NASA science officer on Expeditions 22 and 23. Creamer and his crew members supported three space shuttle missions that delivered the U.S. Tranquility module; installed onto Tranquility the Cupola – a seven-window facility looking directly at the Earth, from which we are getting many of the spectacular images from the space station; put the finishing touches on U.S. laboratory research facilities; and attached the Russian Rassvet laboratory to the station. Creamer and the Expedition 23 crew returned to Earth aboard a Soyuz on June 1, 2010, landing in central Kazakhstan.
When/Where: 10-10:45 a.m.
Lynchburg Elementary School
276 Mechanic St.
Lynchburg, Tenn., 37352
1-2 p.m.
Ninth Grade Academy
900 South Main Ave.
Fayetteville, Tenn., 37334
To attend: News media interested in attending can contact Tracy McMahan in Marshall’s Public & Employee Communications Office at 256-544-0034. Media should arrive at schools 30 minutes prior to event.
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text-only version of this release
Tracy McMahan
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
tracy.mcmahan@nasa.gov