The journey that matters

Astronaut and alumnus Duane Carey talks about experiencing the real world

University alum Duane Carey and the STS-109 crew pose in front of the Space Shuttle Columbia shortly after returning to earth in March, 2002. Carey, the pilot of the mission, is third from the right.

By Jason Sanford

From M

When astronaut Duane Carey gives motivational talks at schools, he delivers one of two messages. If he's visiting a school in a poor area, he talks about how he grew up in a single-parent family in the housing projects of St. Paul and how he's the first person in his family to go to college (let alone outer space). "I want these kids to know that one of them is up there as an astronaut," says Carey. "I want them to know that they live in a country where they can do whatever they want if they're willing to set a goal and work hard to achieve it."

However, at well-to-do schools crammed with students who think a perfect transcript and attending the right college are all that matter in life, Carey talks about the importance of doing other things. "Life is long," he says. "Get out there and experience the real world."

"Kids hear the mainstream point of view all the time--go straight to college, hurry up, get a career. Too many people keep their noses to the grindstone and miss everything that happens around them. If they do that, what have they really learned?"

When Carey was growing up in St. Paul, he was not a great student--his main passion was motorcycles. Throughout high school he worked to buy his own motorcycle and, after graduating, began biking around the country. He slept in backyards and worked odd jobs, staying in one place only long enough to earn more money and go biking again.

After two years of doing this, Carey realized that he was just coasting through life. So he set some goals. First, he and his wife, Cheryl, who shares his love of motorcycling, decided that someday they would go back on the road. Then, Carey decided to serve in the military. "I had seen with my own eyes how special America is," he says. "That made me decide to give something back to my country."

Carey didn't enlist right away. His travels had taught him that the best jobs went to those with a college degree, so he decided to attend the University of Minnesota. "By the time I went to college," Carey says, "I had already had enough real-world experience to find myself. That means I went at my studies with a vengeance." He received an undergraduate degree in engineering in 1981 and a master's degree in aerospace engineering the following year.

After graduating, Carey joined the Air Force. He flew A-10s and F-16s, served in the Gulf War, and later became a test pilot. In 1995, he applied to be an astronaut with NASA. "Being an astronaut was one of those impossible goals you set," he says. "Even if you never actually reach it, just aiming high gets you running into all sorts of good stuff along the way." But Carey did achieve that goal and began training with NASA. In March of 2002, Carey flew on his first space mission. He was the pilot of the space shuttle Columbia, which serviced the Hubble Space Telescope.

Still, at age 45 and at the height of both his career and, literally, the universe, Carey hasn't forgotten the other goal he set--going back on the road with his wife. This means that sometime in the next two years, depending on when his next mission ends, Carey plans to retire from both the military and NASA. "Doing this may be career suicide," he says, "but you need to keep true to the goals you set and have the courage to act on them."