Kjell Lindgren, a Robinson Secondary School graduate, visited his alma mater to discuss his flights to the International Space Station.
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BURKE, VA — A graduate of Robinson Secondary School visited the school Friday afternoon to discuss his career as an astronaut and his flights to the International Space Station.
Joined by U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Kjell Lindgren, a 1991 graduate of Robinson, has logged 311 days in space across two spaceflights, the first in 2015 and the second when he served as commander of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-4 mission to the International Space Station in 2022.
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“This place served as a launch pad for my dreams,” Lindgren told the students about his time at Robinson.
Lindgren, an Air Force Academy graduate, explained how he was forced out of the Air Force after getting diagnosed with asthma. “That meant a complete obliteration of a dream of not just getting to fly in the Air Force, but the dream of becoming an astronaut,” he said.
But Lindgren went on to get a doctorate of medicine from the University of Colorado in 2002. He then was tested again and learned that he no longer had asthma.
“I got tested multiple other times because my life had been dramatically changed as a result of that diagnosis,” he said. “And I was cleared of that diagnosis. So I thought to myself, ‘There’s still a possibility that I could serve in human space flight in some way.'”
After applying to the astronaut program, Lindgren then was selected in 2009 as one of nine members of the 20th NASA astronaut class, allowing his dream to come true.
At Friday’s assembly at Robinson, Nelson explained that NASA will soon name the four-person crew for its flagship Artemis program to return astronauts to the moon for the first time in 50 years.
Scheduled to launch in 2024, Artemis II will be the program’s first crewed mission to orbit the moon, flying farther into space than any humans since the Apollo program and paving the way for the Artemis III crew to walk on the moon in 2025.
In his comments, Lindgren emphasized to the students that hard work, team work and kindness are the attributes that led him to becoming an astronaut and are perhaps applicable to most people’s journeys in life.
“Those are the things that I feel made the impossible possible in my life,” he said.
Lindgren also expressed gratitude for the role that his teachers and coaches at Robinson played in his journey to becoming an astronaut.
He said his time at Robinson “set him on a trajectory that’s come full circle so that I am able to come back here and share with you all today.”
