Former Migrant Worker Journeys From Farm Fields to Space

Aug. 24, 2009— -- Jose Hernandez' journey to space started in the farm fields of California. Today, he is one of seven astronauts who will be onboard the space shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station this week.

He also will be fulfilling a promise he made to his parents, who will be among the thousands watching the orbiter's night launch, now scheduled for Tuesday.

Hernandez now jokes about working in the fields in California alongside his Mexican migrant parents and older brothers and sister. It was back-breaking labor, picking cucumbers and tomatoes. His parents, Salvador and Julia Hernandez, only made it through the third grade and told their children if they wanted a better life, they needed an education.

Hernandez said his parents would have been happy if he had finished high school, but he took it further.

"When I was a senior in high school, I made a personal promise to myself to become an astronaut," Hernandez said. "That was when I heard that Franklin Chang-Diaz was selected as an astronaut."

To Hernandez, Chang-Diaz was a barrier breaker.

"He knocked down the wall -- Hispanics can be astronauts now and everything I read about his background, he came from Costa Rica, from very humble beginnings, he struggled with the English language and despite all that he was able to become an astronaut," Hernandez said. "And that is what I told myself, 'If Franklin can do it, why can't I?'"

He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering, and went on to work at the Lawrence Livermore labs, where he became an expert in x-ray physics. Later, he helped with the disposal of Russian nuclear materials, and eventually he became an engineer at the Johnson Space Center, where he was selected as an astronaut in 2004 after repeated applications.