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“Good Morning America” co-anchor Michael Strahan earned his industrial astronaut wings after blasting off on the Blue Origin rocket Saturday morning from Van Horn, Texas.
Whereas Strahan, a Houston native and Texas Southern College alum, was inching towards the sting of house, a fortunate TSU scholar and professor had been there to look at.
Angel Mata, a senior at TSU, and aviation professor Ed Pataky had been each available to see the magical second.
“I am simply fully blown away,” Pataky stated earlier than the launch. “I grew up with the house program. By no means noticed a launch, and now I get to do it.”
ABC13 caught up with the pair after the launch, and it is secure to say, they had been simply as blown away as they had been earlier than the launch occurred.
WATCH: Michael Strahan blasts off into space; Blue Origin crew successfully lands back on Earth
“All you may say is wow,” Pataky gushed. “I am simply now coming again right down to earth. There is no technique to describe it. It’s a must to be there. I used to be simply completely awestruck. I’ve seen it on TV 1,000,000 instances, seen tens of millions of images of it, however there’s nothing like really seeing it in particular person.”
“What actually hit me is when the booster was coming down and that basically begins to reverberate between the mountains out over right here,” Pataky continued. “It did not simply go ‘growth, growth.’ It simply form of rumbled away. It was one thing you have to expertise.”
As soon as Strahan was again on earth, he stopped to speak with Pataky and had a message for TSU college students.
“I am out of TSU. I by no means thought I might be right here. I by no means thought I might be anyplace close to a rocket, on a rocket, close to house. The one house I assumed I’d see is the one between my tooth,” he joked.
Strahan continued, calling it the “most luxurious” expertise of his life, including that the expertise was doable due to the brilliant minds at establishments like TSU.
“You additionally notice it is created by good folks like the scholars at TSU, who might by no means get an opportunity to go, however their ingenuity, their training, their means to determine issues out, makes what we simply did hopefully accessible to extra folks sooner or later,” Strahan stated.
You may view Strahan’s full remarks within the video participant above.
Texas Southern College is the one establishment within the state that gives a four-year Aviation diploma. At the very least 80 college students are enrolled in this system.
“If you concentrate on it, in a few of these neighborhoods in Houston, you are by no means going to get a possibility to talk to a pilot or an plane mechanic,” defined TSU Director of Aviation Dr. Terence Fontaine.
Texas Southern is the one HBCU within the nation with flight simulation packages.
Mata instructed ABC13 after Saturday’s profitable mission that understanding Strahan was onboard as a TSU alum solely makes him extra proud.
“It makes you are feeling proud concerning the legacy, , Michael Strahan and different alumni that graduated from Texas Southern. We’re a household, so the camaraderie that now we have, would not matter what yr you graduate, we’re all the time going to be there for one another, so it is incredible to be right here and see his achievement ,” Mata stated.
In the meantime, Fontaine hopes the Blue Origin launch will encourage extra college students to pursue aviation – a area that has traditionally lacked range.
“It is a lovely area, aviation. I’ve beloved all of it my life, so simply making an attempt to offer again and attempt to assist these children notice one thing I’ve realized my complete life,” Fontaine stated. “For these children to have the ability to discuss to any individual like Michael, who walked the identical hallway that he did, I feel means lots.”
Watch response from TSU aviation professor Ed Pataky and senior Angel Mata
SEE ALSO: ‘Good Morning America’ host Michael Strahan’s Blue Origin training begins in Van Horn, Texas
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