Local astronaut Jose Hernandez to be keynote speaker at Delta College event

Now that he's no longer floating in space, astronaut Jose Hernandez will be the keynote speaker on Saturday as San Joaquin Delta College celebrates the re-opening of the George H. Clever Planetarium.

Hernandez, 47, spent two weeks in August on the Space Shuttle Discovery and had the time of his life, sending daily reports to Earth on Twitter.

Hernandez and his three siblings grew up in Stockton and Lodi, working in the fields with their parents. He didn't learn English until he was 12 years old, but he speaks fluent English today. He got a full education at University of the Pacific and University of California, Santa Barbara. Hernandez now lives with his wife and five children in Houston so he can be near the Johnson Space Center.

Hernandez will speak at noon on Saturday in Atherton Auditorium on the Delta College campus, 5151 Pacific Ave., Stockton. The day will include several free half-hour planetarium shows, Venus and moon viewing, rocketry demonstrations and telescope viewing.

The rocketry demonstrations will be conducted by Chuck Marble, a NASA ambassador, and Patrick Dunbar. Telescopes will be provided by the Stockton Astronomical Society.

For more information, call 954-5151. For a campus map, visit www.sjdccd.cc.ca.us/info/general/map/.

Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com.

Event schedule

Venus and moon viewing: Cunningham C-6 parking lot off Pacific Avenue, 10 a.m. to noon.
Free planetarium shows: 10 and 10:45 a.m., 1:45, 2:30, 3:15, 4 and 4:45 p.m. Tickets are free, but seating is limited. Tickets are required and will be distributed on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Rocketry demonstrations: 11:15 a.m. to noon and 1 to 1:45 p.m., Cunningham C-6 parking lot.
Astronaut Jose Hernandez: Noon, Atherton Auditorium.
Ribbon-cutting: For reopening of planetarium, following Hernandez's keynote address, Cunningham Planetarium.
Source: San Joaquin Delta College

Reader Feedback

Mainframe wrote on Oct 10, 2009 4:01 PM:

" Did anyone go to this event? How was it? Sorry I missed it. "

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Mainframe wrote on Oct 10, 2009 4:00 PM:

" fictious guy from Galt?

LOL!!! "

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galtguy wrote on Oct 8, 2009 9:08 PM:

" Nice, what happened to all of the comments?

To sum, this is afirmitive action at it's worst.

You gunna censor that one LNS?

Maybe if you put half the time into well researched articles that you do into worrying about what some fictious guy from Galt has to say you'd have a better paper.

LNS try reading some of the CONTENTS of the comments, you might get a clue as to what your readers want. "

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ttian wrote on Oct 8, 2009 12:02 AM:

" Galtguy wrote: "Let's face it folks, NASA needed someone with a last name that ended in "ez" and they found one."

To suggest and comment that Mr. Hernandez was only chosen to as part of NASA because of his last name and not his high qualifications, hard work and goals, early passion for space travel, higher and graduate education, earned degrees has a high racist element to it. Nothing new but Shame on you. Congratulations Jose Hernandez in all your achievements and dedication to US Science! "

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Lodian wrote on Oct 6, 2009 8:37 AM:

" Wow! This sounds great! Welcome back, Jose Hernandez! "

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jbhiker wrote on Oct 6, 2009 4:47 AM:

" I like the way area newspapers are falling over themselves to claim him as their "local area resident". "

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