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	Astronaut John Herrington has become the first Native American to walk in space. (AP Photo/NASA)

Native American Astronaut Takes Historic Flight

The first Native American to go into space celebrated Thanksgiving Day while working. John Herrington became the first Native American to walk in space a few days earlier.

Herrington and another astronaut also took part in the first space walk on a Thanksgiving Day. The space program had crews in space on 10 other Thanksgivings. But those crews always stayed in their spacecrafts.  

Herrington is a member of the Chickasaw Nation. His great-grandmother on his mother's side was of Chickasaw decent. The Chickasaw Nation is now located mainly in the state of Oklahoma.

Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday in the United States. It is celebrated as a day of feasting and giving thanks. Native Americans joined European settlers at the first American Thanksgiving Day in the 1600s.

To honor his Native American heritage, Herrington carried a Chickasaw Nation flag on the flight. The governor of the Chickasaw Nation, Bill Anoatubby, had given the flag to Herrington. The astronaut also carried eagle feathers, arrowheads, and a handful of sacred ground.  

“I take tremendous pride in who I am, where I came from,” Herrington said.  “I know that the people I meet who are Native American, there’s a connection to me, there’s an immediate recognition of belonging.”

Herrington on Endeavour

Herrington was on the space shuttle Endeavour when it was launched November 23rd from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The space shuttle returned December 7. Three other astronauts were on the shuttle when it went into space.

The shuttle flew 245 miles into space. It then docked at the International Space Station. The flight was the 16th American mission to the space station. The space station circles the earth.

The Endeavour took two Americans and a Russian to the space station. The shuttle brought back an American woman and two Russian men. They had spent six months living on the space station.

Herrington is 44-years-old. He was born in Oklahoma. By the time he was a senior in high school, he had moved 14 times. He had lived in Colorado, Wyoming and Texas during those moves.

He flunked out of college after two semesters. He loved rock climbing. He got a job on a surveying team. The team helped build roads in the mountains.

Herrington was asked to climb steep rocks to make measurements. He had never liked math in school. But the job required him to use math to figure distances and angles.

Found he liked solving math problems

He discovered that he enjoyed solving problems with math. One of his bosses encouraged him to go back to college. He got a bachelor's degree in applied math from the University of Colorado in 1983.

Herrington then joined the Navy to become a pilot. He is a commander in the Navy. In 1995, he earned a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.

The space walk that Herrington made on Thanksgiving Day was the second of three he made on the mission. One of the things he said that day may show how much the former college dropout has accomplished.

“I never thought I'd be doing this in my life. Wow!” he said.