Lt. Col. Scott “Kidd” Poteet ’96 and three fellow astronauts are preparing for an historic space mission that will take them closer to the moon than anyone has been since NASA's Apollo missions in the 1970's. Poteet is a pilot for the first SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission, which is expected to launch Monday, Aug. 26.
The Durham native will be a part of the milestone mission that will include testing a next generation spacesuit during the first commercial spacewalk, achieving the highest altitude of any human spaceflight mission since the Apollo program and testing a new laser-based satellite communication system.
“I’m so excited and I’m really looking forward to the journey,” says Poteet. “This is the pinnacle of my flying career and I’m so thankful for the opportunity to head into space.”
Retired after a successful two decades in the U.S. Air Force, Poteet has patrolled the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea, flown combat missions over Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq and even soared with the Thunderbirds, the Air Force’s elite precision team.
Poteet found his love for flying at UNH when he went on a refueling flight in a KC-135 tanker while a part of UNH’s Air Force ROTC. He admits that he got horribly sick on the flight but when he saw the F-16 being refueled, he was hooked.
He credits that experience as well as lessons learned in UNH’s outdoor education program, being a part of the cross-country track team and his participation in UNH’s ROTC program for setting him on a path and shaping his future.
“I never dreamed of being an astronaut but through those programs we learned to push ourselves in various environments, learning to work as a team and trying different experiences,” says Poteet. “UNH taught me to embrace challenges.”
The four-member Polaris Dawn team is expected to be in space for five days. During that time the astronauts will participate in a wide range of activities, from health research experiments to help advance both human health on Earth and during future spaceflights to on-orbit reading of a children’s book, Kisses from Space, written by a crewmember.
