CAPTAIN Winston Scott, pilot astronaut, epitomises the new breed of astronaut now working at Nasa. His resum lists a set of intimidating accomplishments, from a first degree in music to a masters in aeronautical engineering, a career as a navy pilot, and then a mission specialist aboard the Endeavour for a nine-day space flight.
He has been an instructor in electrical engineering, achieved a black belt in karate, played the trumpet with a Houston-based big band and done a six-hour space walk. And in his visit to South Africa, he displays yet another talent – he fills the role of friendly emissary from America to perfection.
Ask him if there’s anything he does badly, and he shakes his head at the question. “I don’t think about the things I can’t do,” he says. “There’s no point to that. I think it’s better to focus on the things you’re good at.”
But pressed a little, he admits to being “a little bit of a perfectionist”. “I think I have become more laid-back in my old age.”
#Scott is 46 years old, a trim neat man who holds himself well and combines an American openness with an articulacy that is all his own. He’s come here to return a South African flag he took into space, and to speak to kids to encourage them to be involved in science and technology.
He knows he’s here as a role model, to say to students: “If I can do it, you can.” This comes easily to him, because he has a strong belief in the “can-do” approach to life – after all, it worked for him.
In a sense, he is the American dream made flesh: the child of a working-class family, whose father never had the opportunity to go to college, he lived in an all-black neighbourhood, went to segregated schools and grew up in the civil rights era.
He didn’t have a background in science and technology, although his father used to take him and his brother to science fairs. “Mostly, we were the only black kids there,” says Scott.
He studied music because it was what he knew and enjoyed, but his college roommate took science and maths courses and that was his first real exposure to science subjects.
“My music degree disguises quite a lot of science,” says Scott. He laughs when asked if he is one of those people who thinks maths and music are related. “Definitely!”
Scott says some researchers believe that we use the same side of the brain for composing music and solving mathematical problems. And he believes that composing music is a similar process to engineering. “In both, you have an idea in your head and have to translate it into reality.”
The modern astronaut is a different breed from the space jockeys of the early days. Pilot astronauts like Scott combine the physical fitness and technical proficiency of the old-style spacemen (who were pilots first) with a solid education in science and engineering.
But he says there are also astronauts who are just scientists, and sometimes specialists – today’s space industry requires that.
What’s a space walk like? “Absolutely fantastic,” says Scott. “You can see the earth below you, all blue like in the pictures.”
It’s more like floating than walking, he says, no sense of up and down. The sun is so bright there that you cannot look at it. “It’s not filtered by the earth’s atmosphere. And it is white rather than yellow.”
Scott says it was the most wonderful experience of his life, and it served to entrench his world view. “I’ve always seen the earth as very precious, very fragile, almost sacred.” He curves his hands in a ball as he talks. “It should be protected.”