Pinky Nelson: Conversations with an Astronaut

This semester the shipboard community was pleasantly surprised to find out that not only would they be sailing around the Atlantic, but they would be doing so with two former NASA astronauts. Meet one of the two, George “Pinky” Nelson. An astronomy teacher on board the 50th anniversary voyage, Pinky was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in January 1978. A veteran of three space flights, he served aboard Challenger in 1984, Columbia in 1986, and Discovery in 1988. He has logged a total of 411 hours in space, including 10 hours of EVA flight time. Find out more about Pinky and his time aboard the MV Explorer in this video.