Astronaut Mike Massimino Meeting With Crew of Apollo 11.
NASA astronaut Mike Massimino during a training session for his second space shuttle flight, STS-125, which flew to the Hubble Space Telescope in May 2009. Credit: James Blair NASA Most of his starry-eyed generation would remain earthbound, trapped and discouraged by the transience of the Apollo era, which fizzled out with the last human landing in 1972. But Massimino managed to persevere, pursuing his Apollo-inspired dream through decades of deliberate preparation and multiple setbacks, ultimately joining NASA’s astronaut corps in 1996. Not all, however, were as fortunate as Massimino, who managed to befriend many of the Apollo astronauts during his NASA career. When he finally lifted off, riding space shuttles skyward in 2002 and in 2009 to service the Hubble Space Telescope, he carried their lessons with him. Returning to Earth, he built on their inspirational legacy, using his own spaceflight experience to become a celebrated popularizes of space science and exploration.