José Hernández

José Hernández exemplifies the power of perseverance through his extraordinary journey from migrant farmworker to NASA astronaut. Born into a family of migrant workers, he spent his childhood traveling between Mexico and southern California, picking strawberries and cucumbers while following seasonal work. Learning English at age 12, Hernández discovered his calling while working in sugar beet fields as a high school senior when he heard on his transistor radio that Franklin Chang-Díaz had become the first Hispanic-American selected for NASA's Astronaut Corps.

Despite being rejected by NASA eleven times over more than a decade, Hernández never abandoned his space dreams. His engineering career flourished as he co-developed the first-ever full-field digital mammography imaging system, a breakthrough technology that aids in early breast cancer detection and has saved countless lives. His persistence finally paid off in May 2004 when NASA selected him for astronaut training.

He served as a mission specialist on the STS-128 mission aboard Space Shuttle Discovery, making his childhood dream a reality. His inspiring story became the subject of the Prime film "A Million Miles Away.