Astronaut, neurosurgeon, chemist, designer, professor, mathematician, computer scientist, poet, painter, and landscape designer, Story Musgrave sat down with the Technician before his presentation in the Witherspoon cinema Monday to answer a few questions. Age 75, Story has led a remarkable life, from acquiring 7 graduate degrees to embarking on 6 NASA missions over a 30 years,  to helping design and troubleshoot the Hubble telescope. Though now retired, he travels the world sharing his amazing life’s story.

Technician: What was the training like to be an astronaut? 

Musgrave: Training is just being on the playing field.  That’s my philosophy of life.  It doesn’t matter what you do, whether you’re going to be an electrical engineer or you got a job or you’re got to run a hundred yard dash, you’re on someone’s playing field.  That’s what I’ve done since the age of five. 

Technician: What kind of problems have you faced on the different missions that you’ve been on?

Musgrave: I’ve been very fortunate.  I was on the first shuttle launch abort, lit the engines didn’t go anywhere.  The team did everything right.  I was on the only shuttle mission to lose an engine after we got on.  I had very few surprises on the Hubble repair, and that speaks to the team.  They had identified what it takes to do the job.  So I choreographed the perfect dance, where there would be no surprises.  The bottom line of this is details. 

Technician: How many people where on each mission that you were on?

Musgrave: Well I’ve had the smallest number.  I’ve had three, and then I’ve had seven.  My different missions have had different numbers. 

Technician: What was your role on each missioin?

Musgrave: Most of the time I was a flight engineer.  That’s center seat up front during launch and landing. 

Technician: Did you go through engineering school?  What kind of Engineering did you study?

Musgrave:  I have a minor in Aeronautical Engineering, but that’s when I got interested in the space program and went back into post doctorate fellowship and graduate school to get ready.  So that came later. I was age 29. 

Technician: Where you in the Air Force? 

Musgrave: I was Air Force but I was Marines; I was marines in Korea. 

Technician: What was the longest you where in space. 

Musgrave: The shortest was five days, and the longest was 18. 

Technician: How was the transition into space and back to earth?

Musgrave: Going up is very easy.  70 percent of astronauts get sick going into space.  50 percent are sick enough to be vomiting.  For me, it’s easy.  And coming home, it depends on how many flights I had.  My first flight was only five days, but it was rough coming home.  It was very heavy.  I felt heavy. I was unsteady.  By the time I got to my fifth flight, we landed at one A.M. I went through about three hours of grueling medical exams, then flew to Huston and went to work. 

Technician: What’s it like managing family life and being an astronaut?

Musgrave: I think it’s like being any other professional.  When you have a calling, when you have a passion for something, your they have to share that.  You’re not just eight to four [ o clock].  There’s some travel and there’s some long hours.  There are some overnight hours.  But I think it trades off nicely.  I think the advantages for them outweigh the disadvantages. 

Technician: What was the most rewarding of being an astronaut?

Musgrave: Meeting the expectations on the playing field.  It’s the journey.  [Knowing] you pulled it off.  But still it’s not goal oriented.  That’s the funny thing about all this.  It’s not goal oriented. It’s focus on the journey and how you do things. 

Technician: What did you eat in space?

Musgrave: Well, first of all, I didn’t eat much.  I stuffed my pockets and kept going.  I wasn’t going to spend the time.  A lot of people sit down, they sit on the floor, they should have been sitting on the ceiling, but they sit on the floor.   For me, I don’t spend that much time on food because I can eat down here. 

Technician: Do you miss going into space?

Musgrave: Probably.  Miss is a difficult question. Miss means I don’t like the life I have now, and I’d rather go back.  So miss is a difficult question for me.  I had hell of a good time.  No one else stayed for 30 years. 

Technician: When was your last trip into space? 

Musgrave: 1996

Technician: Do you agree with NASA getting rid of the shuttle program?

Musgrave: Well it’s very bad timing, but of course you have to.  You have to move on.  That’s a sixties technology… but when you’ve just built a station that’s going to be up there for another ten years its bad timing.   There’s two parts to that.  We have to move on from the shuttle, but it’s not perfect timing.  So, ironically, it’s with the Russians that we’re going to get there. 

Technician: Do you have anything you would like to say to the students of N.C. State?

Musgrave: You’ve got to have passion for what you do. Passion’s the number one word. The other would be do what comes easy. Don’t say “Well I have a weakness in this area, I need to strengthen it.” Don’t do that you won’t make a difference. Work on your strenghts, not your