GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — From a 1986 Detroit Lions draft pick to an astronaut in outer space.
Leland Melvin has been both.
Tuesday he was in Grand Rapids telling an audience at Calvin College how one thing led to the other.
“It is a long story,” he explains. “But I always had people who believed in me and told me I could do anything.”
When an injury in training camp ended his football career, Melvin says he went to grad school, got a job at NASA and was accepted into the astronaut corps. He flew two missions aboard the space shuttle Atlantis to the international space station.
“I have had so many setbacks in my life,” he says.
“The message today is have perseverance and grit and determination and believe in yourself that you can do or be anything you put your mind to.”
Melvin retired from NASA in 2014, but he still travels to support science and technology curriculum in schools and encourage life-long learning for adults.
