6 Time Spaceman: Interview with a St. Mark’s Alumnus

Picture Source: Wikipedia

By Serena Lin ’28

As of this year, St. Mark’s has a long and impressive history of 161 years. 161 years of history, 161 cohorts of students, and 161 graduating classes of alumni. In high school, not a lot of students have an idea of what career they want to pursue and where they will end up. The alumni community of St. Mark’s School encompasses a lot of different fields, including finance, mathematics, engineering, and more. This time, Dr. Story Musgrave agreed to share his valuable insights from his experience at St. Mark’s School.

Dr. Musgrave graduated from St. Mark’s in 1953 before diving into his impressive academic journey: 2 bachelor's degrees, 3 master's degrees, 1 doctoral degree, and more than 20 honorary doctorates. Throughout his impressive career as an astronaut, Dr. Musgrave has completed 6 space shuttle missions and has accumulated a total spaceflight time of over 1200 hours. His most celebrated flight, STS-61 in 1993, carried out the historic repair of the Hubble Space Telescope. Beyond his public achievements, Dr. Musgrave also revealed some fun facts about himself.

The first catchy thing about Dr. Musgrave is his unique first name. Dr. Musgrave bears a name that feels almost prophetic: his life unfolds as a story of remarkable accomplishments. Dr. Musgrave expressed his affection for the name and stated that it's a family lineage name. His daughter is named Story (little Story, as he calls her), and there is a running lineage of “Stories” throughout the history of the United States. Dr. Musgrave also thinks that Wikipedia did a good job of picturing him after reading through the website.

When asked about his career, Dr. Musgrave stated: “You're not just chosen because you're an expert in something. You're chosen to get that job done.” In his expert work as a space doctor, Dr. Musgrave talked about the difficulties of living in space. “70% of astronauts are sick in space, and 50% of them are vomiting.” With a crew of seven astronauts, some of them are able to do their work while they are sick, and some are not able to. “You’ve got to hang them on the wall and wait till they can function”.

“The toughest thing about space,” he added, “is the space motion sickness. We humans are designed to be a 1G environment creature; long-term 0G conditions in space can harm the health of an astronaut.” But instead of fearing the 0G condition, Dr. Musgrave loved the 0G condition. He was the only one who didn’t strap himself up when going to sleep, and he always found it interesting where he floated to when he woke up.

Talking about the start of his career as an astronaut, Dr. Musgrave agreed that his life as a farm kid surged his enthusiasm in the field. The crescent and the eclipses that he could not see in cities gave him a large advantage.

Dr. Musgrave also gave advice to the St. Mark’s Student community.

“If a student at St. Mark’s wants to become an explorer, someone who pushes the boundaries, what should they do?”

“Pursue the exploration; explore different avenues. Put yourself in different conditions. Always hold courage in what you are doing: I don't know much about what I'm doing, but here I am. “

In Dr. Musgrave’s high school days, he didn’t know where he was going to go either. He followed his heart, his passion. “That’s all that makes the difference,” he said, “It's essential that you are excited to pursue the path that you have chosen.” Even if we are still unclear about our interests, our passion, or the route that we want to devote our life to, it is important to follow what our heart tells us.

To conclude the interview, Dr. Musgrave reminds the students to be more mindful of what's around them. “Because when you look at the night sky, the crescent moon, the eclipses, what's gonna turn the heart on also turns the memory on.”

True to his name, Dr. Story Musgrave’s narrative remains far from finished. Before the conversation ended, Dr. Musgrave extended his greetings to Dr. Hills. The insights shared in this conversation form only one chapter of a lifelong story built on relentless exploration, both in the cosmos and within the realm of knowledge.