NFL Player Turned Astronaut Explorer | Leland Melvin

♪ music playing ♪
I remember this quote, and it said:
"The two most important days of your life
are the day you were born
and the day you figure out why."
And it's never too late to figure out why you were born.
Once you start answering that question, that could be at 95.
And just say you live to 100,
you have five years to live out this passion, this why.
My name's Leland Melvin.
I'm an astronaut and I'm a STEAM explorer.
>> That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
>> Leland Melvin: When I was 5 and Neil and Buzz walked on the moon,
and I saw this grainy picture of them bouncing along the lunar surface,
people said, "Hey, do you want to be an astronaut?"
And I'm like, "No, I want to be Arthur Ashe."
Because I saw someone who looked like me,
and I was told that he had great character, discipline and all these things.
And he was able to achieve these things
even while people were still getting hung in the deep South.
[Leland Melvin Heritage High School 1978]
In high school, I did chemistry, I did physics,
and I was in AP calculus, and these kind of things.
But because I performed on the field,
you know, I got the cred with the jocks
but also got the cred with the nerds.
And so jock-nerd syndrome became a cool thing.
I just always have been told that if you just work hard,
and you study, and you stay disciplined,
that you can do anything.
You can rise.
>> One of our guests is Leland Melvin,
the Spiders' all-time leading receiver,
who caught eight more Bob Bleier aerials yesterday.
>> Leland Melvin: When I got drafted to the Lions
in the 1986 college draft,
it was really cool.
However, it was like, what is that next thing?
And while I was playing football,
I started grad school to be a scientist.
So when I got cut, I knew there were other things out there.
I was walking through a career fair at the University of Virginia,
and I'm walking past the NASA booth,
and this woman comes up to me and she says,
"Hey, what's your name?"
And I said "Leland Melvin."
And she says, "I've been looking for you.
I want you to come work for NASA."
I did so many different things at NASA, I got so many different skills,
and I met Katherine Johnson there, who was the heroine in the movie "Hidden Figures."
>> There's no mathematical formula for that.
>> Leland Melvin: We worked together in this group group called the National Technical Association.
Katherine, to me, was like this elder stateswoman.
You know there's brilliance, you know there's grace,
you know there's dignity.
And she was a person that was really impactful for my life.
>> So how we doing today, Leland? Pumpkin suit!
>> Leland Melvin: I was walking down the hall in NASA headquarters in D.C.,
and I was thinking about applying to become an astronaut.
And Charlie Bolden, the first commander to launch the Hubble Space Telescope,
he said, "You know, Leland, you can't get in unless you apply."
And I'm like, "Wow, he's right."
[ROCKET ENGINE BLASTING] >> Three, two, one, and liftoff of space shuttle “Atlantis.”
>> Leland Melvin: When you get to space, you look out the window.
You don't see any political borders.
You see just this mass of beauty.
Peggy Whitson invited us over to dinner in the Russian segment.
There's Russian, there's German, there's French, there's African American,
there's Asian American.
The first female commander.
We're breaking bread at 17,500 miles per hour.
And we're doing it with people we used to fight against.
That was when I had this cognitive shift, thinking about I am working with a team
of people from around the world
to help advance our civilization.
And so if we can replicate what we do off the planet
back on the planet, life would be so much better.
No matter what gifts that you've been blessed to have,
lifelong learning and reinvention can also take the gifts that you have,
enhance them in a way that you can share them with the next generation of explorers.
You can always learn something.
I'm learning something every day, I'm learning something from my dog.
You know, learning from babies, learning from people that are older.
I really hope that people get with us 50-plussers
that you can do anything you put your mind to.
You know, embrace change, because sometimes you
find a better solution than where you are right now.
So when you get assigned to a shuttle flight,
you have a photo day.
And on your photo day you can bring your family.
My four-legged family was in Houston.
So when I got to the guard shack, and I flashed my ID and gunned the van.
Ran the dogs up the back stairs.
Had about a hundred milk bones, and just threw them out on the floor.
They're just happy as can be.
They're just chomping down.
I come out, sit down.
They start running over to me, and I said, "Dude, start shooting."
And Jake jumped up and was like in my ear.
And Scout was like, "Hey, wassup?”
And that's the picture that at one point I think broke the internet a little bit.
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NFL Player Turned Astronaut Explorer | Leland Melvin | AARP

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