It was good, right? Like, if you watched it on mute, you would think it's a good homage to the Star Trek franchise, no? Or perhaps an homage to the human spirit? The desire to explore the unknown? The willingness to put life and limb in peril for the sake of exploration and discovery? That was pretty good, right?







Remember that scene where they briefly touch on the Space Shuttle program? It was immediately after the Apollo program. Because obviously.

















Hey that's a cool shot. Especially with the [short] shot of the astronauts inside the shuttle as it's launching. That's pretty cool, right?

So that shot of the astronauts in the intro. During the launch of the Space Shuttle.















Pretty cool, right?







Did you ever stop to think about what mission that footage was from? And who was in it?

For those keeping score, that was STS-95, on the orbiter Discovery. It launched October 29th, 1998. This mission was famous because it featured one John H. Glenn, Jr., the former Mercury program astronaut who, to date, holds the record for oldest person to fly into space.





That's cool.






But who's in that shot? Well, turns out that that's John H. Glenn sitting there in the middle seat in that very shot! This footage was taken from that launch! To his right, way off in the back of the frame, is Chiaki Mukai. I know this because Wikipedia is awesome.













Chiaki is pretty cool. She was the first Japanese woman to go into space, and has two flights under her belt. What a life.

But what about that other dude? The one whose face is right in front of the camera? The one whose face is taking up 1/3rd of the entire frame? Who is that guy?






According to Wikipedia, that's......*checks notes*......Stephen K. Robinson. Where was he born? Oh shiiiiit son, it looks like he was born in Sacramento, CA!






Why is that exciting? Because I live and work and go to school in Sacramento. LeVar Burton is from Sacramento! (Well, from a surrounding suburb....and I guess I technically am from a Sac suburb too.).






Why is THAT so amazing, though? Sacramento isn't huge, but it's not small. It's the capital of California, after all. Fifth largest economy in the world, and so on. Multiple universities in the area. Sac City, California State University (CSU) Sacramento, McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific, and uh.....*checks notes again*.....oh yeah, just 15 minutes away is the University of California, Davis. Sac is also an easy drive to the San Francisco bay area, home of.....*checks notes*......UC San Francisco, UC Berkeley, Stanford University, Oakland, San Jose, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, NASA Ames Research Center. Big tech hub. And you can take a nice easy Amtrak train from Sac to Davis to the bay.






It's pretty cool. But you know what else is cool?






Check this out.










Whaaaaaaaat, I go to that same university! I'm working on my M.S. there!

Nice name. Sounds like they do some pretty cool stuff. What could I possibly do to learn more??




You might have some luck if you Googled "HRVIP UC Davis". You'd probably find yourself here.




Oh shit son, THAT'S THE LAB I WORK IN. MY BIO IS THERE. THIS ASTRONAUT DUDE IS MY MENTOR. I MEET WITH HIM EVERY WEEK.




That is all I just found out that I've been watching my major professor for the last 20 years and didn't even realize it until 3 years after I started taking classes and working with him.




What a life.

That's pretty crazy! Since I work at a university now, I encounter people who sometimes have a high profile, but nobody that has footage used on a big TV shows, as far as I know.