>> As a kid,
I always loved things that fly.
I was always attracted
to airplanes and rockets.
Just loved space
and I was just always attracted
to the mystery of what's beyond.
My name is Woody Hoburg,
and I'm the pilot
for NASA's Crew-6 Mission to
the International Space Station.
I grew up north of
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and I was lucky to go to
a wonderful public school
called North Allegheny
High School.
Participated in a lot
of winter sports,
so I enjoyed growing up
in the cold.
I think my first dream
was to be a ski patroller
and not long after that
I decided I wanted to be
an astronaut.
I think I was always
even as a kid,
attracted to technical things
and also to problem solving.
I got deeply involved
with something called the
Tripoli Rocketry Association
and started building my own
large scale amateur rockets.
The largest one I built
was 21 feet tall,
16 inches in diameter.
It weighed
well over 100 pounds.
The hard part
is getting it back
in one piece.
I was sewing my own parachutes
on my mom's sewing machine.
So there were some additional
features that I built
into these things.
Since college,
I've been very active
as a rock climber.
And so, in grad school,
I wanted to kind of take that
to the next level
and I had a desire
to maybe serve more
and so I became an EMT.
Became a member of Yosemite
Search and Rescue.
So I was spending
most of the year at Berkeley,
uh, working on my PhD,
but then in the summers
I was stationed
in Yosemite National Park.
And then I ultimately
went to MIT
as a young faculty member
and led a research group
studying convex optimization
for, uh, engineering design.
I would probably
still be there except that
I got selected to come to NASA
and be an astronaut.
I got a call from, uh,
Chris Cassidy.
He told me the incredible news
that they wanted me
to come down to Houston
and, uh, start training.
I could not believe
the words I was hearing.
It was surreal.
I knew that eventually,
I might have an opportunity
to actually fly a mission
and so getting the phone call
realizing that process
was starting was a really
special day for me.
One that I will never forget.
We have an absolutely
amazing crew.
I couldn't be happier
with all three of my crewmates.
I'm just so excited
to spend time living
and working in space with them
and do this mission together.
We've enjoyed training
together, both at NASA,
and our trips out to Hawthorne
to train with SpacexX.
It feels like
we really are gelled,
and we're ready to execute
the mission.
I'm excited to carry on
a small piece
of the more than 22 year
history of continuous
human presence aboard ISS.
It's quite surreal now
having actually achieved
that childhood dream
and being ready
to embark on my mission
to actually fly in space.