{"id":776696,"date":"2026-05-06T06:45:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T06:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/776696\/"},"modified":"2026-05-06T06:45:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T06:45:14","slug":"nasa-astronauts-longmont-visit-inspires-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/776696\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA astronaut’s Longmont visit inspires students"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, students in the St. Vrain Valley School District got to learn about the majesty of space from someone who has seen it firsthand.<\/p>\n

\"FormerFormer astronaut Duane \u201cDigger\u201d Carey is seen during a presentation at the Innovation Center of St. Vrain Valley Schools on Tuesday. (Joel Solis\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the Innovation Center of St. Vrain Valley Schools<\/a> hosted former NASA astronaut Duane \u201cDigger\u201d Carey, who traveled to space to service the Hubble Space Telescope in March 2002. Carey spent an hour at the Longmont facility discussing his upbringing, time in the United States Air Force service and experiences in outer space. Students from Erie High School came to the talk in person, and others could watch\u00a0a livestream of the presentation.<\/p>\n

Carey\u2019s visit was coordinated by Space Foundation<\/a>, a nonprofit based in Colorado Springs that offers educational programs to future space professionals. The Innovation Center\u2019s drone performance team has put on shows for the foundation\u2019s Space Symposium event.<\/p>\n

Innovation Outreach Facilitator Lynn Eckart, who works for the center, said Carey\u2019s visit was perfectly timed with the recent Artemis II expedition.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are going to be the people who are taking us to the Moon and to Mars and beyond,\u201d she said of the students in attendance. \u201cSo this is very timely.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the pilot of the Space Shuttle Columbia, Carey helped his fellow crew members successfully upgrade the telescope.<\/p>\n

Less than a year after Carey\u2019s flight, the Columbia shuttle disintegrated during re-entry<\/a> after another mission.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Carey showed students footage from his mission, which included spacewalks taken by the other astronauts. He pointed out equipment that was made at Ball Aerospace in Boulder.<\/p>\n

Carey encouraged students interested in a variety of topics to consider joining the space industry. Dancers, he said, are good at spacewalks; people who like to sew, he added, can make spacesuits.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s not a single skill and a single passion that any kid has that isn\u2019t required on the space team,\u201d Carey said. \u201cEverything we need here on Earth, we\u2019re going to need in space.\u201d<\/p>\n

Students asked Carey how he adjusted to gravity after days in space and what the \u201cmost miraculous thing\u201d was that he saw aboard Columbia. He told them he never got tired of looking at Earth from the shuttle.<\/p>\n

Joss Bybee, a sophomore at Skyline High School in Longmont, plans to pursue a career in aerospace engineering. Bybee, 16, said she would like to be an astronaut one day. When she learned about Carey\u2019s presentation, she was \u201cjumping up and down,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very excited,\u201d Bybee said.<\/p>\n

\"StudentsStudents listen to former astronaut Duane \u201cDigger\u201d Carey at the Innovation Center of St. Vrain Valley Schools on Tuesday. (Joel Solis\/Staff Photographer)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week, students in the St. Vrain Valley School District got to learn about the majesty of space…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":776697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[4438,4439,9577,4440,1370,728,38889,50,159,783,318164,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-776696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-boulder-county","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-news","11":"tag-front-range","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-local-news","14":"tag-longmont","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-science","17":"tag-space","18":"tag-st-vrain-valley-school-district","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-unitedstates","21":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116526287704996146","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=776696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}