Astronaut Candidate Andrew Smith a Big Hit at His Former Public School

Craig Bakay | Feb 22, 2017

If this astronaut thing doesn’t work out for candidate Andrew Smith doesn’t work out, he could probably make a living teaching public school judging by how he had students at Harrowsmith Public School enthralled during his visit last week.

Smith, who attended Harrowsmith in his younger days, is currently one of 72 candidates left for two open spots in the Canadian Space Agency’s astronaut selection process. He spent last Thursday talking to students and visiting classrooms to field questions from eager space fans.

Of course, students weren’t all that interested in the fact that Smith was born and raised in Harrowsmith and his parents Don (a former South Frontenac Council member) and Margaret still live in the family home. Nor were they interested in the fact that Smith was a running back for both the Sydenham High School’s Golden Eagles or Queen’s Golden Gaels.

Heck, they didn’t care that he has two Queen’s engineering degrees and is currently completing a PhD in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University or that he works for Gumstix Research Canada.

They wanted to know about space . . . and Smith was happy to oblige.

“At heart, I’m an engineer,” he said when asked why he wanted to go into space. “I really like taking things apart and putting them back together again.

“In space, all the problems associated with building stuff are bigger, so that’s why I want to go to space, to solve those problems and build stuff.”

If all goes well and Smith is one of the two successful candidates, he would head to Houston at the end of August to begin training full-time. Since June of last year, he’s been involved in the selection process.

“What will you be doing as an astronaut?” one student asked.

“I don’t really know much about being an astronaut yet,” Smith replied. “But astronauts are either doing experiments are fixing things most of the time.”

Of course there were questions about the moon being made of cheese (“I don’t think so”) and the possibility of alien life (“to me, it seems a little odd that we are the only ones”) and “how do you get back to Earth?

After thinking a moment about how to answer in a way seven-year-olds could fathom, Smith replied: “You slow down and the Earth sucks you back in.”

His overall message to the students was about the importance of working hard — both at school and also at whatever other interests you have.

“Math and science are perhaps the most important subjects if you want to be an astronaut, but it’s important to be well-rounded,” he said.

So were those his favourite subjects in school?

“Actually, I liked auto shop the best,” he said.