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General News: Shuttle Astronaut Has Local Tie
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| Principal Schmidt with the astronaut and Nicky and Georgie Poindexter |
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| Astronaut Alan Poindexter |
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| Full crew stands in front of the shuttle Atlantis |
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| Commander Poindexter when he visited Stewart Air Base |
December 03, 2007
The scheduled launch of the space shuttle Atlantis on Thursday, December 6, is attracting the attention of third graders at Cornwall-on-Hudson elementary school because one of the astronauts has a local connection. Shuttle pilot Alan Poindexter spoke to students of teachers Irene Pons and Gregg Zwickel four years ago when he was in town to visit his brother, Dan. Dan and his wife, Lucinda, owner of 2 Alices Coffee Lounge, have four children in Cornwall schools.
This year, Ms. Pons has asked Astronaut Poindexter to send the class an email from space and he has agreed to give it a try. Pons has been telling her students about the space shuttle mission, which will carry a European-built laboratory to the space station.
Dan says that his brother always wanted to be a pilot. Alan is the second oldest of five sons born to Navy Admiral Poindexter, the former national security advisor to President Ronald Reagan. He joined the Navy and became a fighter pilot, then a test pilot, and, in 1998, began going through rounds of testing to get an appointment as a NASA astronaut.
“His whole life has been on this trajectory,” Dan says, “He is absolutely on the path of what he wants to do.”
The Poindexter family will travel to Cape Canaveral, Florida, to watch the launch of the space shuttle and Dan admits he is a bit worried about his brother’s welfare. ‘It’s dangerous, but probably less dangerous than being a fighter pilot," Dan says. "You worry that he is sitting on top of a rocket that is launching into space."
Ms. Pons says that she was disappointed to learn that the launch is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. because she wanted to watch it live with her students. She will tape it, she says, and the next day show it to the class.
Astronaut Poindexter is scheduled to be on the mission for eleven days. Ms. Pons doesn’t know when she will get a message from him (it has to be filtered through a layer before arriving in her inbox) but you can be sure that when she does, she will share it with anyone who wants to know what it is like to be in outer space.
Click here to learn more about the mission of the space shuttle Atlantis.
Addendum: A couple of years ago, Commander Poindexter flew a NASA jet to Stewart Air Base, where he visited with his brother, Dan, and his four children. Dan says Alan is required to keep up a certain number of flight hours every month. "The kids and I were very impressed when he pulled up in this sleek jet at Stewart," Dan says. In the photo above, Commander Poindexter poses with the Poindexter children and the NASA jet.
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