CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – SpaceX’s second crew has two military officers who played college football, a former space shuttle flight controller, and the first person in decades to launch aboard three kinds of rocketships.The three Americans and one Japanese should reach the International Space Station late Monday for a five- to six-month stay, following Sunday's liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Space Center.
A brief look at each:—Crew commander Mike Hopkins, 51, is an Air Force colonel and former space station resident who grew up on a hog and cattle farm in Missouri.
He played football for the University of Illinois and, before becoming an astronaut in 2009, worked at the Pentagon. He was working as a special assistant to the vice chairman of the.