Assistant manager of the children and teenager department welcome to our yvette this evening the official web site for our guest says it all the only person drafted to the nfl and then to fly in space a career in a vast body of experience is taking him from the gridiron as the administrator and beyond i mean to read a 50 miles above the earth beyond born in virginia before he went to university of virginia on a scholarship earning his bachelors degree in chemistry ennead a hamstring injury but in 1991 he received his masters degree from the university of virginia and in working to create optical fiber sensors resulting in publications of numerous scientific journals as well as the Health Monitoring team and was selected to be an astronaut 1998 and has logged more than 565 hours in space including two missions to the International Space station as a Mission Specialist since then appointed the head of nasa education serving with the cochair with Science TechnologyEngineering Mathematics to develop the fiveyear Stem Education plan a global collaboration warning about space when he is said to expire at at inspiring the next generation he pursues a hobby as a photographer and writer his story cannot last week as well as the younger readers addition that is available the children and Youth Department it is an honor and privilege to introduce our author. [cheers and applause] thank you very much this is my first book signing and i am so broadway by my friends and family and colleagues but i have always thought maybe writing a book one day but i did not know the process so were the things that happen so about april 2001 my parents had a 35th wedding anniversary i was sitting in the car with my cousin phyllis and a friend of hers neem genet so this is where my life changed in a dramatic way so phyllis was a cousin from North Carolina her friend was a person who had a message for me and i did not know her i just met her she said something will happen to you no one will know why this happened youll be healed and he will fly in space to share this story with the world. I say okay. Thinks for the information. [laughter] we had just come back from russia so i was cooking and doing the laundry so 99 percent of the time to support other people and other nations so this piece that we do to help others get ready that was 2000 they launched the help of communications and now it was time for me to train. Said the extra of vehicle trading the was trained to do a space walk. In this suit there is a little pad that is about that big and velcro into a the helmet to pressure to clear your years genet said something will happen nobody will know why so this flashed before my face so now im going down in the 6 milliongallon pool and the pad is not in my helmet so i do have to press your nose to clear your ears . Will i can do that sawyer frantically moving and realize the pad is not in my helmet were trying to tell the test director and then telling them it is an berry said dont yourself try to keep going because there are 200 people supporting this training run so my friend was one of my classmates on the other side he is already down at the bottom of the pool supply will not hold him up they have been waiting almost three years to do this trading because it is the gateway to get a flight assignment quickly so the two of us would probably get signed pretty quickly if we could demonstrate we could do this training so it 20 feet until the test director to turn up the volume and i hear nothing but static and white norways so they rushed me out there popoff my helmet the doctor walks over and says how many people have read the book . A you know, all of this. [laughter] the doctors talking but i dont hear anything said he touches my right to your and shows the blood coming out reconfigure this out. We can make this better so they rushed me to the hospital there is a doctor there who was a day and your nose throw to the 25 at what happened so they operate the start pressing on these to windows but thought there was an area where the food was leaking out a reading was intact so have a picture in the book right after the surgery all the doctors have their heads down and resistor is bare so all the communication i do in a hospital after the surgery is through the yellow legal pad that is why communicate all my friends are here. [laughter] so have the big legal pad they could not find anything we dont know what happened so at that moment win everyone leaves i tried to figure out what is going on mr. Watching the movie good will hunting so when matt damon solves the problem on the board and comes back on the subway there is this music playing this moment of satisfaction and whenever i would hear that music would be so inspiring that i realized i could not hear what i watched the video of him sitting in the car feeling this euphoria and could not hear the music i slammed the laptop shut and started to cry. Ill probably focus more so i can really understand what is going on. But the flight surgeons at nasa said i would never fly in space because we dont note what happened to you we dont know what happened. We dont have a smoking gun so if we put you in space if this happened again and have to jeopardize the mission. They said very emphatically you will never, ever fly in space. Said, okay. And i then tritried to figure out my next step nasa. Thats when i met my education friends in here. I came up to washington, dc to work this program called the Educator Astronaut Program. So we were going to hire teachers to become astronauts and doing it through the students. Whats your name . So we were getting the rafys of the world to nominate their teachers to be astronaut, and that was in 2003. Started out january of 2003. Ive been here for maybe about, what, six months or so. And getting the team together, starting this program, and then we win on the road to start it off, february 1st of 2003, many of you know what happened. We last Space Shuttle columbia, i was actually driving from d. C. Back to lynchburg. My parents still live there and i was driving home to see them. And the head of nasa, deanna lawson, she called me on the cell phone and said leyland the orbiter is late, the shuttle is late. When we land we have in fuel left so its a glider coming in and its accurate. The countdown clock gets to zero. The countdown clock was counting up. Said how late it . She said, its late. So i turned around, going down i can think i was on 66 going home and i turned around and came back, and everyone at nasa headquarters was assembling this team of people trying to figure out what happened. But as astronauts the first thing we do is take care of our families. And so at that point i was told to drive out to washington, virginia, david brun the Mission Specialist on the flight, where his parents left atop browns mountain. Drove out there. It was nighttime, there were satellite trucks on the side of the road. A state trooper was blocking entrance to the mountain because a reporter had acted as florist to get the story, and just kind of bumrushed up to get the story. So they let me through and i walked in the house, and ill never forget this moment. It was very transformative. Im going to there to console i walk in and i hug davids mom, dooley, andber both crying. His father, judge brown in a wheelchair. Go over to hug him, and he says something to me that just galvanized my spirit to make a difference. And again, im not flying, aisle still medically disqualified. He said my son is gone. Theres nothing you can to do bring him back about the biggest tragedy would be if we dont continue to fly in space to honor them, by carrying on their legacy. He is already thinking about the legacy of his son, and then we started crying, and i stay there i think overnight, and were just trying to figure this thing out. And im so honor the legacy by flying, by continuing to fly. And the doctors have told me, youre never going to fly. So im trying to figure out how to honor the legacy. His father, judge brown, told me this thing that real impacted me. And over the next few months we fly in the nasa airplane to the different Memorial Services around the country. Were taking off and landing, and the head of all the flying surgeons, dr. Rich williams, he is sitting beside me on every flight. I didnt even think about that. Just sitting there and hes taking notes, and we take off and we land and i squeeze my nose and clear my ears and so now its about may the middle of may, and the Educator Astronaut Program is wrapping up at headquarters. Were about to send all of the applicants down to houston to go through the astronaut Selection Process, and so my work in d. C. Is done. Im going back to houston. And dr. Rip williams calls me in his office and says, he leland, every been watching you clear your ears, i believe in you, and signs a waiver to fly in space. The moral of the story for the rafy and the kids in here is that you never know whats going to happen but you always, always, have to keep going and believe in yourself, and sometimes when you dont believe in yourself there are other people that do believe in you, and ive always through this book, throughout my life, ive had people that have believed in me when i didnt believe in myself. It started out at a very early age, and some of the people in the room are part of that community that fueled my curiosity, that helped me get through Different Things, and this moment, is kind of like a crossroads in my life as an astronaut. Without this piece of paper written by the chief flight surgeon, i would have never flown in space. And then this prophecy from this woman, jeannette who is never met before, she said these worths to me and that words to me and that also gave me hope. Thats kind of really what this book is about. Its about the little engine that could. Think i can, i think i can. Curious george, rafy, have you read Curious George . You like it. Sort of. He was my guy. Okay. You need to read it again. But, no, having this spirit of curiosity and explore asia exploration and having it instilled in you at an earl age was begin to me through my community, through my parents, and i never forget the day that my father he was school teacher. He drove this my dad did all these different jobs. He was a school teacher, played in the band, did all these Different Things to make money to give me my piano lessons less and clarinet lessons and all these lessons. He worked hard so i could get these things. The day he drove a bread truck into our driveway was the die i said the day i said, okay, youre going be a bread delivery man now . Whats the deal here. This is when learned about vision. The bred truck drove in, we got in it, we look at it, smelled like bred still, and he said thisser is our camper. And i said, no, its not. Its a bread truck. He says the bread on the side of it. Didnt have a vision. But he did. He was always doing things on the cheap, you know, to take care of his family, and this bread truck cost 500, and over that summer i became an engineer. I helped rewire the truck electrically. I built bunk beds that flipped down from the side of the truck that my sister and i slept in. We had sometimes roll out of the beds but over this summer i learned what engineering science was about and learned what it meant to have a vision for something to have this thing being converted and being repurposed for something else, and it wasnt still until we pained the bread sign off the truck that i realized it was our camper and we spent countless summers driving across the country in bread truck that was now a camper. So these lessons of the book is chasing space, an astronauts are so of grit, grace and second chances. The grit was always i was always seeing that in my mom and dad. And the other most beautiful thing about my parents was that they were beg School Teachers in lynchburg, virginia, for 30plus years, and i retired from nasa, my friends here my nasa friends can retired in 2014 to move back home to be with my father. He wasnt doing well. And i got home on a sunday, and my dad and i had this incredible conversation, most beautiful conversation. Actually kind of one of these conversations where we kind of flipped the script. When i was a kid daddy, why dont you take a bad . I dont stink. I dont need a bath. Im talking to him and he said i dont need a bad. Its bath night. Did your mother tell you i need a bath . I dont need a bath. Having this conversation and it was beautiful. And then the next day he was gone. And i was trying to figure out my life as an astronaut, life as a associate administrator for education, all these 24 years working with mass sacker that identity was gone because i had retired from it. Moved from d. C. , moved back home and the reason i moved home was to be with my dad, and he is now gone. So i had to that was a moment of really trying to dig deep and understand the purpose and why im here and ive been told that mark twain always said the two most important dives your life are the day you were born and the day you figure out why. Why . What is our century i was today by my editor when i said he said mark twain didnt really say that. But if you look in the book, theres no mark twain reference there. But i still use mark twain because it sounds kind of cool, i think. But figuring that why out, and as a society, in this day and age, with all the things that are going on, all of us collectively figuring out why were here to help impact the rafys and the people that are here that are going to be the explorers that help change our planet for the positive. Thats why i wrote this book. And its the jeannette, you will share your story, its the Family Community not giving up, believing in me when i didnt believe in myself, and its a journey of Stem Education, signs, technology, arts and mathematics. I grew up not knowing what steam was but i was living it every day with piano lessons and building bicycles and bread trucks and all these Different Things, and i think one of the thing thats going to help us as a civilization is when we realize that were really on this really small little blue marble together, technically working together as one civilization, granted we dont always see this happening every day, but from the Vantage Point of he International Space station, when i look out over virginia and i see my home town from space, its only 240 miles up. The distance from d. C. To new york. Not that far, really. Going around the planet every 190 minutes, seeing a sunrise and a sunset every 45 minutes, doing this with people we used to fight against i. Was there with the russians and the germans, and having these moments where im flying over virginia, five minutes later were over paris, where leo, one of my crew mates is looking down, my mom is probably eating down there, too, and russia, theyre in a couple minutes. I shows you how connected we are as a people, and then flying over afghanistan and looking down and seeing how beautiful it is, but knowing what is happening down there. Aleppo, all these maces of unrest and fighting and these things going on, but from that Vantage Point its simply stunning. Ill try to get you all signed up for Spacex Mission i have some coupons up here. You might be the lucky one to get the spacex right but if you get an opportunity and whether its through vr or whatever the experience you ha to get to see this, it fundamentally, cognitively changes you as a person to make you want to do better when you see our planet from that van take opinion, and on my First Mission in 2008 i was up there with dr. Peggy whitson, the first female commander of the mission for the young ladies in here any young ladies in here . Okay. Just want to tell you that experiencing peggy, running the show, large and in charge, with all of these men, was one of the most beautiful things ive ever seen. And to have that respect and that excellence was just remarkable. And so she is up there now. I talked to her maybe three months ago. Shes going to be the longest running u. S. Astronaut in space, 650 days. Yeah. And i think she has the length record but also the number of space walks record. The length of hours in space walks, too. They just did one the other day for a couple hours to fix some stuff. Another thing the book, i call it the space sphoerg smorgasbord. We installed the Columbus Laboratory, and when i fir got the assignment, there was a maybe 20 german anything controllers in houston and they were there working together with the flight directors and people to make sure that everything was in place. The procedures procedures and an play to stall is in Columbus Laboratory, and so they had found out i was now assigned to be the robotic arm operator to install their baby. They had been waiting ten years to install this mod dual, and all their job security depend on me installing it properly. So i walk into the room and there were these 20 guys, and theyre like, highfiring me and chestbumping me and all that. Youer going to install our baby, and we have been waiting all this time. And then as i started to walk out of the room, this one guy looks at me and he says, mr. Melvin, we have been witnessing ten we have been waiting ten years, dont screw it up. And so in space, my hands on the rotational hand controller, the translational hand controller, and ive now grappled the Columbus Laboratory and im unberthing it from the payload bay of the Space Shuttle. So coming up, and now were starting to turn it and position it to install it to the side of the space station. Its getting closer and closer and closer. The motion stops. And im still pulling the hand controller. And in the back of my mind i hear this dont screw it up. What happened, there are these four ready to latch indicators that are springloadded and they tell you the orientation. So if youre like this, youll see on the computer monitor that these or two engaged but these are not so you know you need to pitch done a little bit, our pitch up a little bit or whatever you need to get all four connected to the same time. So, peggy whitson,