Just a couple hundred people hear their names called in the NFL Draft every year. Far fewer go into outer space. Leland Melvin has done both. OnlyAGameNPR
"You know, you would watch the television. You would see buses are getting firebombed, and you’d see these things happening to people that look like you. So you know that you can’t just do everything that anyone else can do. You have to make sure that you’re treading — I’m not going to say lightly, but treading in a way that’s not going to disrupt the apple cart and will take not only you out, but maybe take you and your family out, or your community out.
Leland’s interest in science and engineering skyrocketed. In high school, he attended a special engineering program at the University of Virginia that specifically targeted minority students. He collected old bicycle parts and used them to build his own personalized bike. He helped his father refurbish an old bread truck into a family camper, complete with a stove and flip-down bunk beds.Leland had always been an athlete.
"Before online learning became a thing, they were videotaping VHS video tapes of math for material science and electrochemistry that they sent to Valley Ranch for me to watch after catching footballs during the day for America’s team," Leland says."That was the hardest job I've ever had, to train to be a professional football player and go to grad school at the same time — grad school as in material science engineering.
"And I was in this suit that’s a cross between the Michelin Man and the Pillsbury Doughboy, going down 32 feet in the water. And we were actually going to be training on submerged space stations and space shuttles to simulate what we would do on our missions." About three weeks after the accident, Leland’s hearing returned to his right ear. But damage to his left ear remained. His dream of orbiting planet earth appeared to be over.Leland shifted his focus at NASA. He worked on robotics and joined an educators program in which he traveled across the country encouraging children to nominate their teachers to become astronauts.
"And that night I went to David Brown's parents’ home in Washington, Virginia, to console them," Leland says."And when I got there, David’s father said something so powerful to me. He said, 'We must honor the legacy of my son and the crew, who gave their lives for our civilization, for humanity, for doing these incredible, incredible feats.' And I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to honor them if I’m medically disqualified to fly.
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