FAU went intergalactic when the space shuttle Discovery launched. Steve R. Swanson, an FAU alumnus, was on board with the school’s College of Engineering and Computer Science flag in his bag.
The flag won’t be planted into the surface of the moon or flown from the Space Station. But, he will wear his Florida Atlantic T-shirt as he floats around the shuttle during the 15-day mission.
Swanson is a mission specialist and the lead space walker on NASA’s first shuttle mission this year, STS-119. On March 15, the crew left for the International Space Station where they will be adding the final set of four solar array wings that power the station.
As well as assembling and deploying the wings, the shuttle crew will deliver astronaut Koichi Wakata to a resident station crewmember. Wakata, the first Japanese astronaut from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, will take the place of American astronaut Sandra Magnus who has been in space since November 2008.
Swanson received his master’s in applied science in computer systems from FAU in 1986 and while finishing his degree began to consider what he wanted to do after school.
“I started thinking about really what I want to do for a long time and what would excite me and keep me interested, and that’s when the astronaut idea came into my head,” Swanson said in a NASA preflight interview.
He didn’t qualify to be an astronaut when he applied after graduate school. However, his education helped him get the position of software engineer at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, a year later.
Then NASA called him.
Twenty-three years later Swanson brought an FAU flag with him on his first mission to space. After returning to Earth, Swanson presented the flag to President Brogan at the 2007 fall commencement address for the College of Engineering and Computer Science. In return, Brogan presented Swanson with an honorary doctorate degree.
For his second mission he brought a second flag.
“This is the place that made the difference in his life that has put him where he is today,” says Brenda Coto, development director for the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
The first flag is hanging on the second floor of the Alumni Building and Coto plans to display the second flag on the wall of honors in the new engineering building.