Astronaut Herrington wants kids to reach for the stars

For children who dream of reaching the stars, John Herrington wants to talk with you.

Herrington is an aba’ nowa’ – or, directly translated, an above walker. That’s the word for astronaut in the Chickasaw language. In 2002, he was the first enrolled member of a Native American tribe to fly in space. He’ll be at Auntie’s Bookstore on Saturday to read from his children’s book, “Mission to Space,” and talk about his life.

“I just want to make it a chance where folks can ask an astronaut,” he said. “And see if folks can identify with my journey.”

As a child, Herrington said he dreamed of space, but it didn’t occur to him that he could get there himself.

“When I was about 8 years old, I’d sit in a cardboard box and dream I was going to the moon,” he said.

It wasn’t until years later, when he was a test pilot in the Navy, that the idea of being an astronaut became a plausible pursuit. The intervening years included being suspended from college for bad grades, and, luckily, he said, getting a job and meeting people who helped him discover a love for math and physics. That sent him back to college, and eventually to the Navy and NASA. But his education didn’t end there. He’s since earned a doctorate in education at the University of Idaho, in a program encouraging education in math, science and engineering for Native Americans.

He sees the importance of exposing children to a range of opportunities. For example, he said, he recently met a young woman who’s a civil engineer in the Bay Area. She told him they’d already met – when she was 12 – and it was that meeting that opened her eyes to engineering as a career path.

“We always look to role models, and role models that we can identify with are much more tangible,” he said.

“It makes their journey more possible,” he added.

And that’s part of what Herrington hopes to do, both in person and through his book.

“Mission to Space” includes many pictures – of Herrington as a child, in training, in space – and he said that’s made an impact on readers.

“I think kids like to see the reality, they like to put themselves in that reality,” he said.

The book also brings in his Chickasaw heritage with a vocabulary list at the back of the book that translates space-related terms into the Chickasaw language. “I think that’s a lot of fun, because I don’t know of any other books out there like that.”

But the biggest lesson for children – and adults, too – is that dreams are achievable.

“If there’s a dream you have, you can achieve it. You just have to work hard and listen to people who can encourage you,” he said. “And identify it as, ‘Oh, that’s something I can do’ … astronaut or otherwise.”