GREENFIELD — When you’re an astronaut, you spend a lot of time in space with the same six people. If you want to get any work done, you’ve got to find a way to get along.
And that’s what NASA astronaut Cady Coleman of Shelburne did during her 24-year career with the space agency. She spent days in space with Americans like her, Russians, Italian, Japanese and others to carry out groundbreaking science in zero gravity aboard the International Space Station.
Coleman spoke to a crowd of students and guests during the Greenfield Community College Foundation’s annual meeting Thursday night in the college’s dining commons.
“We’re all very different,” Coleman said. “We don’t all always like each other, actually, but we all have the same passion for space exploration.”
The ISS itself, she said, reflects an incredible example of international cooperation, with “hundreds of people on the ground, making decisions and getting things done every day.”
“Even with the present troubles we have in international relations, the space station is considered separate and special,” she said. “Because the mission is so important, you find some common ground and it doesn’t really matter whether you like each other or not, because the job is more important than if you do.”
Over the course of her career, which will end with her retirement at the end of the month, Coleman has orbited the Earth 256 times, traveled more than 6 million miles through in outer space. On her third mission, she logged 159 days aboard the ISS.
While in space, Coleman said, she and her crewmates performed experiments that are designed to better understand how certain substances behave in microgravity environments, how to grow food for space travel, and how being in space affects human physiology, among other things. Their work, she said, has helped improve medical care on Earth and accelerate technological development.
“Everything is so different, the rules are all different, so it’s just so much fun to find things out,” Coleman said, as video rolled on the screen behind her of the astronauts conducting experiments with fire and water. “When you think about space and what we do up there, you think about spacewalking, but what we’re really out there to do is exploit this very special place and learn things we can’t learn down here.”
The Founation’s Distinguished Alumni award went to Chris Doyle, who graduated in 1998. Doyle works for Aspen Dental and is considered the world’s seventh best data scientist.
You can reach Tom Relihan at: trelihan@recorder.com