For nearly his entire life, John Shoffner has wanted to go to space.

That dream is about to come true as the Middlesboro native will be taking the reins of the Dragon capsule as part of Axiom Space, his upcoming voyage to the International Space Station.

It's built on an Air Force base.

My dad flew 59 scorpions on the dew line, but I grew up primarily after that in Middlesboro, Kentucky.

I spent my entire adult life there.

It's home.

Most of my family is still there.

They grew up loving space.

We had our own Little astronauts club when I was eight, nine years old in Middlesboro.

We slid around in cardboard boxes, but that stayed with me my entire life and I live close to an airport, so I was always hanging out at the airport and had access to people that flew.

So it was kind of a natural thing extension for me to expect to fly.

And I did.

I started flying when I was 15 and then got my pilot's license.

The moment I was eligible.

I like to joke that I trained in a cardboard box, but now I've upgraded to the Dragon capsule, so it's quite an amazing leap.

Of course, the exposure I had and expectations and spaceflight were what I saw in Gemini and Apollo.

And of course, then the shuttle with 1 million switches and all sorts of things.

The dragon is much different.

It's a very systematic it's all touchscreen, it's a completely glass cockpit.

This trip is is organized by Axiom Space.

They're building the next space station, which will replace the ISIS in eight years or so or six years when the ISIS decommissioned.

We have a really, really tremendous payload of experiments, actual research work by researchers on the ground that need to do orbital microgravity research for stem cells or in a tissue growth.

We're doing things for brain neurology, you understand brain blood flow in the brain, in microgravity.

These are things that will help us not only improve life on earth with science and drugs and different medical procedures, but also how humans can exist long term in space.

We're also demonstrating and testing new technologies for the Axiom Station and for NASA that help us understand how we can operate more efficiently in space.

I'm using the large part of this mission for me to support STEM educational activities so that we can engage the eight, nine, ten year olds like I used to be.

I was a ten year old, wants that love space.

Let's let's teach to that.

Let's help them speak that louder and take their interest in any direction that they want to go.

Shoffner will be the third Kentucky astronaut alongside Story Musgrave and Terence W Wilcox.