Astronaut Peggy Whitson visited Graceland's Lamoni Campus recently and delighted Lamoni Elementary school students, Graceland students, faculty and staff, and community residents with an account of her six months aboard the International Space Station. Whitson shared photographs and video clips of life aboard the Space Station from her recent,
historic space mission. She was commander of the six-member Expedition 16 that blasted off from Kazahkstan, a nation just south of Russia, on Oct. 10, 2007 and did not return until this past April.
Whitson hails from Beaconsfield, west of Lamoni, near Mt. Ayr. She is a graduate of Mt. Ayr High School. She has been making the rounds throughout Iowa and the nation, sharing information about her space exploits. She is especially popular with younger public school students who have a fascination with space and the U.S. Astronaut program.
Between Expedition 16 and her first spaceflight in 2002, Whitson has accumulated 377 days in space, the most for any U.S. astronaut. During that time she circled the earth at 17,500 miles an hour. She holds the world record - 39 hours, 46 minutes - for the most time spent on spacewalks outside the Space Station.
Whitson also proudly reminded the audience that she too is a Graceland alumna. She took six hours of Graceland summer school classes while she was enrolled as an undergraduate at Iowa Wesleyan College. Graceland is proud to claim her. So proud that the university will be naming one of the new labs in the Resch Science and Technology Center (scheduled for completion in the fall of 2009) to honor Whitson. Her photo and memorabilia of her space missions will adorn the lab. Whitson is especially interested in getting young women motivated about study in the sciences.
In preparation for Expedition 16, Whitson learned to speak and read Russian to communicate with fellow astronaut Yuri Malenchenko. The flight also included a Frenchman and two other Midwesterners. Its mission was to add modules that increased the living space of the Space Station and provide new laboratory equipment to send record data from space.
A challenge of one spacewalk outside the Space Station was to repair a tear in the fabric holding solar panels and to adjust rotators that kept the panels pointing toward the sun. The audience saw close-ups of the damaged panels and of the astronauts, tools in hand, stitching metal pieces on either side of the tears to hold them in place.
Asked about what it takes to become an astronaut, Whitson described the rigorous physical and technical training she had been through. Her message to Lamoni youth was inspiring. She said, "Dream big. You can attain your goals if you work at them." After an hour with Graceland alumna Peggy Whitson, the audience believed it.
