Space Conference Speaker

Founder of Tierra Luna Engineering, LLC José M. Hernández is a former NASA Astronaut, was selected as part of NASA’s 19th class of astronauts in 2004 where he trained and served as the flight engineer on the 2009 14-day STS-128 mission aboard Space Shuttle Discovery. Before being selected as an astronaut, Jose worked at NASA as the Branch Chief of the Materials and Processes Branch at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. There he oversaw the branch’s activities in the areas of materials and processes, fracture control, nondestructive evaluation, failure analysis, and Nano materials research. His branch was also instrumental in participating in the investigation to help find the root cause of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident and reporting those results to the President’s Columbia Accident Investigation Board. Prior to this, Jose spent more than 15 years at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) where he worked on the development of a space deployed X-Ray laser as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative. After Jose’s 2009 Space Mission José was assigned to work at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C. where he served as a Legislative Analyst and helped in the development of space policy, NASA’s annual budget package and served as liaison with key Congressional members. Additional duties included the development of an effective strategy that promoted the President’s new vision on Space Exploration. José the author of four books that include his autobiography “Reaching for the Stars,” “From Farmworker to Astronaut,” the children’s version “The Boy Who Touched the Stars,” and his most recent “Soaring to New Heights.” An inspirational new movie “A Million Miles Away” shows Hernández’s journey from migrant farmworker to astronaut in outer space.