AerospaceFest

Dorothy “Dottie” Metcalf-Lindenburger, the daughter of two teachers with a love of the space program, has “The Right Stuff.” As a NASA astronaut who flew with the crew of STS-131 to the International Space Station, Ms. Metcalf-Lindenburger has risen to heights that make those of the Mile High City of Denver, in which she grew up, pale by comparison. It may have been inevitable that Ms. Metcalf-Lindenburger would follow in her parents’ footsteps to become a high school earth science and astronomy teacher – and inevitable, too, that she would copy them by sharing her love of the space program with her students.

As Ms. Metcalf-Lindenburger writes, while she found photos from the Hubble Space Telescope “fascinating,” it was her fascination that bred a similar fascination about spaceflight in her students. And, it was one of her students who, in raising the question “How do astronauts go to the bathroom in space?”, led Ms. Metcalf-Lindenburger to a NASA Website that not only provided her the answer but also an application to become an educator astronaut.

As an earth science and astronomy teacher, Ms. Metcalf-Lindenburger seemed a natural fit for the astronaut program – she had earned her bachelor’s degree in geology from Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington, and her teaching certificate from Central Washington University, Ellensburg – but it was her enthusiasm and eagerness for spaceflight, that “Right Stuff” nurtured in her by two teachers, her parents, that made her stand out among all other candidates to win her a much-coveted place in the astronaut program.