DURHAM, N.H. (WHDH) - A New Hampshire native is shooting for the stars as part of a crew that will be on board a SpaceX rocket set to launch on Friday.
Mission pilot Scott Poteet grew up in Durham and graduated from the University of New Hampshire.
As Poteet prepares for SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission, his former college track and field coach said there is no doubt he is ready.
“[He is] full of life, a risk taker,” said James Boulanger.
Boulanger said Poteet wanted to fly while he was a college student, getting into the Air Force ROTC while at the University of New Hampshire.
A successful athlete and a future pilot, Boulanger said Poteet has done the unexpected.
“He wanted to be a runner,” he said. “Nobody would have expected him to win the state championship.”
“Nobody would have expected him to fly an F16 with the Thunderbirds,” he continued. “And nobody would have expected him now to be piloting a spacecraft.”
The Polaris Dawn mission aims to bring humans closer to the moon than anyone has gone since NASA’s Apollo missions.
The flight is expected to last five days and will feature a first-of-its-kind commercial spacewalk.
The four-person crew will also debut new SpaceX-designed spacesuits and conduct roughly 40 health research experiments.
Soon after he lands, Boulanger said, Poteet plans to participate in a triathlon.
“He’s still crazy after all these years,” Boulanger said. “[He’s] going to go into space and then do a triathlon. That would be Scott.”
Asked if he has a message for Poteet, Boulanger wished him the best of luck.
“Enjoy looking back down at Earth,” he said.
Plans for the Polaris Dawn flight envision orbit that will extend up to 870 miles from Earth, according to CNN.
The flightpath will take Poteet and other crew members through the Van Allen radiation belt, enabling certain experiments aimed at helping better understand the impact of spaceflight and space radiation on human health, according to the Polaris Program website.
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