In 1972, Hernandez saw the very last Apollo mission, when he was 10 years old and that’s when he decided that he wanted to be an astronaut. “I heard Eugene Cernan talk with mission control and that’s when my dream to become an astronaut was born,” says Hernandez. In 1984 he graduated from University of the Pacific with a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and then earned a master’s degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from UC Santa Barbara.
That’s when he knew he was on the right path to becoming an astronaut, he had the degrees in science necessary to make it, so he applied and got rejected—again and again. “ That’s when I learned that I need to better prepare myself,” he said. He started studying other astronauts to see if he had the skills that they had. He saw that they were pilots, so he decided to learn how to fly. He learned that they were divers, so he learned how to dive. Then in 2004, 11 tries later, he was selected by NASA as an astronaut candidate.
“I didn’t get frustrated after receiving so many rejections, because I was enjoying what I was doing, which was working towards becoming an astronaut,” explains Hernandez.
