Friends, family and local officials came out this weekend to see San Joaquin Regional Transit District’s new bus wrap, honoring Stockton-native NASA astronaut and engineer José Hernández.
Hernández shared his vision of space travel to a crowd of about 100 people early Saturday morning at the Stockton campus of California State University, Stanislaus.
His journey began in fifth grade, when Hernández said he watched the 1972 Apollo 17 mission on his television with black-and-white rabbit ears antenna.
“I saw Gene Cernan walking on the moon, and I said, ‘that’s what I want to be,’” he told the crowd.
This feat would at first seem impossible, Hernández said, as someone who spent seven days a week picking in the fields during summers. However, his father urged him to shoot for the stars.
“You know that effort you put out picking fruits and vegetables, put it here,” his father would say, pointing at Hernández’s books.
So he chased his dream, Hernández said, making it through the process of becoming a NASA astronaut, only to be rejected from a pool of 12,962 people who also happened to meet the minimum requirements.
There was a tiny note at the bottom of his rejection letter, he said, which read: “Please feel free to re-apply at your next selection cycle.”
And so he did, several more times, Hernández said, even framing every subsequent rejection letter he received on his wall.
“I was getting rejected left and right, and no one likes rejection,” he said. “I don’t like rejection.”
Eventually, Hernández said he grew frustrated, even attempting to even throw away his sixth rejection letter. However, his wife Adela picked up the letter and pushed him to keep trying, questioning whether or not he was a “quitter.”
So, he continued working toward his goal with more training, Hernández said, even traveling to Monterey to become a certified scuba diver while later venturing to Russia to learn the language.
“That’s what took me over to being selected as an astronaut,” Hernández said proudly.
When NASA selected him to take an interstellar journey on the STS-128 mission, Hernández said he spent about two weeks in orbit and traveled over 5.7 million miles, during which time he spent observing the chemistry and physics of microgravity
But going to space wasn’t Hernández’s only memorable feat. While in orbit, he posted on X, formerly Twitter, in Spanish, becoming the first person to use the language in space.
Hernández, who was born in French Camp, described the firm ties he has made across San Joaquin County.
“I live in Manteca, and my office is in downtown Stockton, and then I have a vineyard in Lodi,” Hernández said. “You know they say that you can take a kid out of the farm, but not the farm out of the kid.”
Gary Giovanetti, RTD board of directors chair, said the bus presented Saturday morning will serve as inspiration to those who take it for a ride.
“When this bus pulls up near a school, a library or a community center, it shows kids that your background doesn’t define your limits and your location does not determine your future,” Giovanetti said.
In 2005, Hernández launched the Reaching for the Stars Foundation with the mission to “educate students and our community about the Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) and Arts (STEAM) fields.”
A biopic of his life was also released “A Million Miles Away from 2023,” where he was portrayed by Michael Pena. Hernández, who owns a 20-acre vineyard in Lodi, has also since established his own brand of wine called Tierra Luna Cellars in 2021.
Before leaving the event Saturday, Hernández gave some final words of encouragement.
“A lot of people say, ‘Man, you’re so lucky you became an astronaut,’” Hernández told Stocktonia. To which he would reply, “‘Luck has nothing to do with it.”
“Prepare yourself according to the challenge and work hard,” he said.