Cal Poly grad, astronaut Victor Glover chats with VP Kamala Harris — while orbiting Earth
Cal Poly alumnus and NASA astronaut Victor Glover had a virtual chat with U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as he orbited Earth aboard the International Space Station.
The conversation, recorded Feb. 24 and shared Saturday, came during the final week of Black History Month. The San Luis Obispo university graduate and Harris spoke about Glover’s history-making journey on the ISS.
Glover, a 1999 general engineering graduate of Cal Poly, is the first Black crew member to stay aboard the ISS for a long period of time — those who preceded him only spent short stints aboard the space station.
“I want to ask you, as you are in the process of making history, how do you think of those upon whose shoulders we stand and how they have inspired your work?” Harris asked Glover.
“All seven of us up here are a part of an amazing legacy of human spaceflight everything every astronaut or cosmonaut has ever done has led to us being here now in this special time. And so, I really appreciate that legacy and I try to work my hardest to honor it,” Glover responded. “What I’m most excited about is the future of human spaceflight and the fact that this is going to be the future; this is what we’re going to do for the foreseeable future.”
Glover is aboard the ISS to conduct research and scientific experiments such as growing radishes to better understand plant growth and nutrition in microgravity; conducting cancer therapy research; studying how mining with microbes might be used on asteroids; and continuing research into the effects of microgravity on the human heart.
On Sunday, Glover conducted a six-and-a-half-hour long spacewalk to modify the space station’s solar panels to allow room for more in the future. The solar panels power the ISS, according to NASA.
During a spacewalk, astronauts work on the outside of the space station to conduct repairs, upgrades or modifications to the ISS as it orbits Earth.
Glover conducted the spacewalk with NASA flight engineer Kate Rubins and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi.
Glover had previously conducted two other spacewalks aboard the ISS, which he told Harris were amazing experiences.
“The first time (I conducted a spacewalk) I did just sit back and look down at the Earth, I just wanted to do that for the rest of the seven hours that I was outside,” Glover told the vice president. “It was pretty amazing, but we had a lot of work to do. So it was also very busy — busy and beautiful.”
In closing the short conversation, Harris asked Glover what he saw as Earth’s challenges from his vantage point up in space.
“It is just a spectacular thing to see from here, and it’s very obvious from up here is how thin our atmosphere is and just how special it is for there to be human life on this planet,” he responded. “And so it makes me want to do all that I can to protect that.”
“You are inspiring us,” Harris said. “And you are reminding us of what is possible when we dream big and when we think big. So thank you.”
Glover was recently selected as one of 18 NASA astronauts to be part of the space agency’s Artemis program, which aims to send humans back to the moon before 2030. He was selected out of NASA’s 47 active astronauts.
Glover has been on the ISS since Nov. 16 and will be there for another three months before returning to Earth.
