A production of South Carolina ETV.

♪ >> Well the sky is no longer the limit I'm not really sure we know what the limit is >> The carbon monoxide that you're made from and iron and so on, those are things you have in your body, those were made inside of stars long ago.

And so in some kind of way you're made of star dust.

>> I can't say that is was always easy.

You can imagine as being being the only woman in a F-14 squadron.

>> In the movie Jurassic Park, I was the technical advisor.

That means that... that I was, I was Steven Spielberg's assistant.

>> There wasn't a space program back then.

So I had no desire to be an astronaut.

If you told your mom that you were going to be an astronaut when I was your age, boys and girls, they would have thought I was crazy >> Science is a funny thing.

It's not really a thing in a sense.

It's a way of thinking.

You can apply science to studying anything.

♪ Child #1> It started with the Wright brothers, who proved man can fly.

Then in the 60s, NASA showed the sky is no longer the limit.

Space became the frontier to conquer.

And among the astronauts, blazing new trails was one of South Carolina's own.

Charles F. Bolden Jr. Maj. Gen. Charles Bolden Jr.> I flew four times in space.

Twice on Discovery, once on Atlantis and once in Columbia.

And they were all different.

All exciting.

All awesome, you know, and even though you know what's going to happen, you think, something different happens and you get excited, you know?

When did I decided that I wanted to become an astronaut?

I was an old person.

I was about 34 years old, and I had been to Vietnam and back.

I was a Marine Corps pilot, just as I am now.

And I had thought about applying for the space program a couple of years earlier, but figured, nah.

At that time, all astronauts were about this tall.

They were all test pilots, all men, all White men at the time.

And, I just didn't think there was any possibility of my becoming an astronaut, so I said, forget it.

I didn't even try.

A couple of years later, NASA had selected had already selected the first group of shuttle astronauts.

They were not only not all this tall, they were not only not all White males, they were women, Blacks, Hispanics.

And so I said, I'll try.

I will put my letter in, I'll make application.

I probably won't be selected, but at least I'll try.

So that's my lesson to you.

Anything you want to do, ask for it.

The answer may be no, but then again, what's the answer if you don't ask?

Audience> No.

>> All right.

Right off the bat.

And, you know, when I didn't apply the first time.

NASA didn't come find me and say, hey, we know about you.

We've heard about Charles Bolden.

We want you to be an astronaut.

You didn't have the courage to apply, but, but we think you ought to be an astronaut.

So come on.

It doesn't work that way.

So if there's something you want to do, you have to try for it.

So it was.

I was 33, 34 years old when I finally got the courage to fly and say, I may not be accepted, and I, and I said, that's all right, and at least I tried.

And I got real lucky.

I did get accepted.

And so I started my time with NASA in 1980 and had a great time for 14 years.

Child #2> Risks.

Taking risks is a scary thing to do, and there's no guarantee you'll be a winner.

Maj. Gen. Charles> Weigh the risks.

Really study very hard to understand what it is you're about to do, and make sure that it makes sense, first of all, and that, that the risk is something that you can control.

When I go fly the space shuttle, there are a lot of things that can go wrong, but we've tried to evaluate the system and make sure that we understand everything that can possibly go wrong and have taken some action to make sure that, that doesn't happen or if it happens, we have some way to, to accommodate it, you know, to, to make up for it.

The second thing is, is really have integrity and that means be honest, be honest with yourself, be honest with other people.

Face up to very, very difficult decisions on your part because it's the right thing to do.

And this morning we talked about that in relation to sex and drugs and all the other kinds of things that, that young people your age are exposed to nowadays a lot more than I was.

Be willing to stand up and say, hey, what I feel inside and what I learned from my parents and my church and my school and other people, is that there is a right and a wrong, and I'm going to do the right thing.

So I'm going to, I'm going to live my life, living by the characteristic of integrity and honesty.

Whenever somebody asks you something, even if you think you're going to get in trouble, tell them the honest answer and just face up.

You know, just, just take the heat for that one particular time and get it over with.

But if you if you try to make up an answer or something, you've got to remember what you said the next day and it's just too hard.

So that was my, that was my comment about integrity.

And the third thing is be willing to accept responsibility for your actions.

All of you have seen people.

You see people in your classes, your classmates who make a mistake, and they look around and they want to find somebody else to blame for it.

All of us do that in life.

My recommendation to you and I learned this from my brother, is learn how to take responsibility for your own actions.

When, when you make a mistake, when you fall short of a goal or an objective, sit down and be honest with yourself and say, okay, what did I do or what did I not do that caused me to make that mistake or caused me to fall short on in the pursuit of that particular goal, and then go back and say, I'm not going to do that anymore, or I'm going to do better the next time, but don't look for somebody else to blame.

Take the responsibility for all your own actions and, you know, stop being a mean kind of person.

Think of other people and think of the things that you're going to do and how they're going to affect other people, and then be responsible for your actions.

Child #3> Of course, with risks comes the chance of failure.

Maj. Gen. Charles> One would be, anything you want to ask for it.

But when you do, be very careful because you may get it.

The best way to get it is to prepare yourself.

And the best way to prepare is through study and work hard work, and then finally, don't be afraid of failure, because, in failing, we learn.

In failing, we're able to redirect our lives.

And, in my personal experience, some of the better things that I have done, some of the things that have brought me the most satisfaction have come after I've failed at something and then gone back and looked at it again, studied some more, went back and worked a little bit harder, and then finally succeeded in.

Child #4> Okay, to be an astronaut, you have to be able to take risks and be willing to accept the consequences.

But that's only one step to achieving a goal.

You have to have something else to become a member of the space team.

Child #5> Are there any specific qualifications you have had to become an astronaut?

Maj. Gen. Charles> Are there any specific qualifications you need to become an astronaut?

There certainly are.

The, the biggest thing is that you have to have a technical background, and that means you have to have graduated from college and preferably some post-graduate study in science, engineering or mathematics, either of those three.

If you're a straight-A student and you majored in history, that's not considered to be a technical background.

So you have to have majored in something that's considered technical, engineering or science.

You don't have to have ever flown before, believe it or not.

We have two types of astronauts.

We have pilots like me, who have trained to be pilots, and most of us have flown for the military.

And then we have mission specialist, and they tend to be much more technical.

They are usually PhD, types of people who are engineers or scientists.

They've done a lot of research, and those are the kinds of people you're in competition with when you apply for the astronaut program.

Any of you could be an astronaut, if you went to college and got a degree and then went on and did some graduate study and came out and worked in an operational environment, got, got an opportunity to work in a laboratory.

So if, if you even think that's what you want to do, you ought to really study hard because you can do it.

There's no reason you can't.

I was on the youngest crew to ever fly into space.

Of what shuttle?

Every crew likes to say they were the, something else.

All we could say was we, we were the youngest.

We had the youngest commander at the time.

It was great.

So I was, 39 years old getting ready to turn 40 the next year.

We now have people who fly at the age of 26, Dr. Sally Ride was among the youngest people to fly in space.

Sally was, 20, 25, 26 when she was selected for the space program and, flew at the, at about 31 or something like that.

I am one of many who go into space and feel like you belong there.

I felt great.

I was concerned that I was going to get sick because as a general rule, first time pilots get sick or used to because we did a lot of head movements and flipping switches and stuff, and that gets you kind of disoriented.

I made up my mind on my first flight that I wasn't going to do all those kind of head movements.

I was going to move my whole body and try to keep my head oriented.

So I felt great.

You learn how to float.

You learn that floating is not like a helium filled balloon that somebody turned loose, and you go to the ceiling.

In space when you float, you abide by Newton's law, which says, Audience> What goes... Maj. Gen. Charles> What goes up must come down?

No.

(Audience laughs) Maj. Gen. Charles> Good try.

Not quite.

How about, a body... (Audience speaks) Maj. Gen. Charles> All right, a body at... (audience) Rest, >> Stays at rest.

That's probably out here on the floor somewhere, I'll bet.

But, you get to live Newton's laws.

I mean, it's amazing what old Sir Isaac Newton came up with sitting on Earth, affected by gravity.

You know, when the apple hit him in the head and all that stuff, and he just from getting hit in the head with an apple, he said, "Hey, man, if we could take gravity away, a body at rest would stay right there."

And sure enough, you go into space and you don't take gravity away, but to neutralize it by going real fast and you make centripetal force.

Remember that?

Yeah.

Okay.

You got it now.

These guys have got it.

They know the answer is yeah.

(Audience laughs) Maj. Gen. Charles> Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Centripetal force pulling on the yo yo.

If you take a yo yo on a string, you know, and the string, you get the tug.

That's this invisible force called centripetal.

It's trying to pop the string.

Gravity's trying to hold it, you know, like the string.

And when you go 17,500 miles an hour, then, there's a lot of centripetal force created.

It equals gravity.

And you float.

You know.

Anyway.

Child #6> Ever heard of the Cold War?

It was a long time ago.

It pitted the Soviet Union against United States.

Major General Baldwin helped to bridge the gap.

In 1994, Bolden commanded the first joint U.S. Russian Space Shuttle mission.

Maj. Gen. Charles> My last flight last February 1994, was flown aboard Discovery and it was the first joint Russian American space shuttle mission.

So we actually had trained with two Russian cosmonauts.

Both of them, had been in space and had established records all on their own.

The guy who did not fly with me, Vladimir Titov, was a colonel in the Russian Air Force.

Vladimir at that time was the Cold War record holder for long duration space flight.

He had spent 365 days in one wack aboard the Russian Space station Mir, one whole year.

The guy who did fly with me or with whom I flew, Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev, was the veteran of two Mir missions.

His first mission was five months in length, and his second mission was ten months.

And between 1991 and 1992 or over that period of that ten month period of time, he orbited Earth.

while the Soviet Union came apart, disintegrated.

He left the world.

he left, had left Earth as a citizen of the Soviet Union, and returned to Earth as a citizen of the country of Russia.

Unbelievable individual, very, very brilliant.

This is my last crew, and I just want to show you them, very quickly.

I want to introduce you to a few people.

This is Dr. Jan Davis.

Jan was on her second mission.

She's a mission specialist.

Born and raised, well, born, actually raised in Huntsville, Alabama.

Graduated from the University of Alabama and got a PhD in mechanical engineering.

Ron Sega has a Ph.D. in electrical engineering.

This guy you know.

This is my pilot, Ken Reightler.

Ken's another Naval Academy graduate, just as I was, and his degree was in aeronautical engineering.

This is Sergei Konstantinovich Krikalev.

Sergei spoke fluent English when he came, so we didn't have a problem with communications with him.

Vladimir, his backup, spoke none.

No English.

So Vladimir and his family had to learn English over the two years, that they, three years that they were here simultaneous to trying to prepare to fly on the space shuttle.

And Vladimir did end up flying a year after us aboard the shuttle.

But Sergei spoke fluent English.

His wife did not.

He had a three year old daughter at the time who did not.

But by the time they left, everybody spoke English.

And we spoke a little bit of Russian, not an awful lot.

But we didn't need to for that particular flight.

This is Franklin Chang-Diaz.

And some of you can see him.

Some of you can't for the light.

Franklin's real special to me.

Franklin is, was born and raised in San Jose, Costa Rica.

And at the age of seven, he went to his dad and said, I have to go to the United States because I want to be an astronaut.

And every astronaut comes from the United States.

His dad said, forget it.

Go away.

Don't bother me.

Come back when you've graduated from high school.

So ten years later, Franklin graduates from high school, comes back and says it's time to go.

His dad said, go where?

He said, I've got to go to the United States.

Remember we talked about this ten years ago.

You told me to go away.

Don't bother you.

Come back.

I'm back.

And his dad, they debated for a while.

You got to remember San Jose, Costa Rica, Spanish speaking.

Franklin spoke no English.

Okay?

Fortunately, his dad did.

His dad was an engineer.

He had some friends in Hartford, Connecticut.

He said, okay, Franklin, I'm tired.

Here's a one way ticket to Hartford, Connecticut.

50, 50 dollars in cash.

Not five thousand, five hundred.

What would you ask your dad to go to Orangeburg?

(audience laughs) I mean, it'd be more than 50 bucks though, right?

(audience laughs) All right.

Franklin came from San Jose, Costa Rica, to Hartford, Connecticut, with $50, a one way ticket and a note that said, this is my son, Franklin.

He thinks he wants to be an astronaut.

Humor him and then send him home.

(audience laughs) Four years later, Franklin was graduating with honors from the University of Connecticut.

Two years after that, he was getting his PhD in plasma physics from MIT, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

And then, just as Franklin told his dad, some years later, he became an astronaut.

He and I applied together.

We were interviewed and everything, and we flew our first flight together.

And we flew my last flight together.

But, that's my hero.

Child #7> Every day the world is more crowded.

And there are times when we all need our space.

It's easy enough to do here on Earth, at least.

If you want some space, you just go somewhere else.

But in space, if you want your own space, well, there's only one spacecraft.

So what's it like being cooped up inside a space shuttle for hours?

Even days, even weeks, even months, even...?

You get the picture.

So what's it like?

Maj. Gen. Charles> That's the front window.

Glowing.

It's like being inside a light bulb, trying to look out when you come back to Earth and shuttle.

It's so hot on the outside, and the light is so bright that you can't see outside, for most of the entry.

And then finally it cools off and things get back to normal.

But inside it's just as comfortable.

It's like 72 degrees or something like that.

It gets warm, but it gets warm because we're in this launch and entry suit which weighs about 85 pounds and as you, as you get closer and closer to Earth, you feel gravity more and more.

You go from being weightless to being back to 1-G. And when you come back from space, having been weightless for a week, a 16th of a G, you can feel your hands start to come down at a quarter of a G. Your hands are down on the console and you have to think about lifting them up.

And at 1-G, at one times the force of gravity, what we experience right now, you feel like you have a gorilla sitting on your shoulders.

I mean, you really, really feel heavy and you start to sweat.

Just from the... just from the weight of your own body any 1-G environment, initially.

So, and then perspiration causes heat to go out into the cabin, so it gets hot, but it's not from the tile at all.

It's, it's from your body.

It's just the weight that you feel when you come back.

Child #8> South Carolina has produced no less than five, count them one, two, three, four, five who wear the title of astronaut.

But getting that title wasn't easy.

It started simply with a dream.

Major General Bolden wanted to fly in space.

To do that, he had to learn how to fly.

Learning is the first step you have to take to achieve your dreams.

If learning is the baby step, you take on your road to achievement, then discipline to keep trying, no matter what, is the next step.

And it can be a giant step.

Maj. Gen. Charles> Discipline is something that's absolutely a necessity, a necessity no matter what you do.

If you want to be a professional athlete, if you want to be a schoolteacher, if you want to be a pilot, you've got to put some discipline and rigor into your life, because that is the way that you can set goals for yourself.

You can, establish a pattern by which you want to live and then get there.

An undisciplined life is you just taking your chances, you know, you take whatever they throw at you.

And again, I'll go back to the professional athlete.

The best athletes in the world are those who are very disciplined and very structured, in their performance of their particular sport.

Look at the Dallas Cowboys.

And I'm not a Dallas Cowboy fan.

One of the reasons that they're so good, one of the reasons that the San Francisco 49ers are so good is because they run very disciplined programs that people know where to be, know what to do, and everybody else knows what to expect of them.

Child #9> Still, there's another qualification before it all comes together.

It's an important characteristic as far as what sets one apart from the competition.

Maj. Gen. Charles> Honesty is something that as a military person I deal with a lot because, as my uncle in Opa Locka, Florida would say, And I'll put it in the way he puts it, "You ain't nothing but your word."

And that just means you know better than, than, than your integrity, your personal integrity.

People have to be able to trust you.

And, so you have to be honest with them all the time, even if it's painful.

If you're not, they will never forget it.

Child #10> Hey!

Who says there aren't any heroes left?

Someone special to go where few dare to travel?

Major General Charles F. Bolden, he dared.

And by taking on the challenge, He conquered space.

He's a hero, a genuine hero.

He's someone we're proud to say was born and raised in South Carolina.

You want to be a hero?

The first step is to get a good education.

Open a book and step into a world you only imagine.

You can even step out of this world like Major Charles F. Bolden did.

♪ So here we come.

♪ Just watch us fly.

♪ ♪ Showing all the world ♪ the reason why ♪ ♪ There ain't no stopping us.

♪ ♪ We are the ones.

♪ There's nothing stopping us.

♪ ♪ Nothing's above us.

♪ (No stopping us.)

♪ ♪ There's just ♪ no stopping us now.

♪