Astronaut to Speak With Norton, D.C. Engineering Student and DC Students from Houston Today (9/5/07)

Washington, DC-- The media is invited today at 12:30 PM as NASA keeps a promise to Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) as Colonel Alvin Drew, the African American astronaut born and raised in D.C. just back from traveling into space on the shuttle Endeavour, talks on speakerphone from the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas with students at Ron H. Brown Middle School, located at 4800 Meade Street, NE. Also speaking with Col. Drew will be Marcus Hendricks, a young man who Norton believes can meet his personal goal to become an astronaut. He is a top DCPS graduate who has just entered George Washington University on a coveted Stephen Joel Trachtenberg Scholarship and is studying aerospace engineering. T

Norton is going to a middle school because "to realistically get students interested and prepared for scientific and technical careers, you have to peak that interest early in their schooling," she said. "I wanted to contact Col. Drew so that our children could hear from a young man raised here with whom they might identify and learn how he became interested in science. Our kids know that it's exciting to be an astronaut, but Col. Drew can tell them not only about the excitement of traveling in space, but also about what it took to get him there." NASA tried to make the phone call happen from space but was unable to do so. Norton also hopes to bring Col. Drew personally here to meet with DCPS and charter school children when he is finished with debriefing at the Johnson Space Center.