CORNWALL, Ontario – When Rusty Dawson of Richard’s Landing, ON, heard that NASA astronaut Andrew Feustel was coming to Cornwall, he did not want to miss his chance.
Dawson has a passion for all things space and started collecting the signature of astronauts roughly 10-years-ago.
The first signature Dawson ever got was from astronaut Jack Lousma. Lousma was selected by NASA in 1966 and served on the Apollo 9, 10 and 13 missions.
Since getting his first signature, Dawson has met well over 100 astronauts and has a few NASA posters covered in signatures.
Dawson was at the Team Cornwall Year in Review on Wednesday, Dec. 12, 2018 and hoped to get Feustel to become the 100th astronaut to sign his latest poster.
“They all have such amazing stories,” Dawson said. “You get as close as you can to their experiences through their stories and pictures.”
Andrew Feustel has been on three space missions. One in 2009 to repair the Hubble Space telescope. In 2011 he was on the last mission of the space shuttle Endeavor which completed the construction of the International Space Station (ISS) and in March of 2018, he travelled to the ISS again and returned in October.
Feustel has spent the third most hours walking in space of any person.
Later on Wednesday, Feustel was scheduled to speak to students at St. Lawrence College and on Thursday he was scheduled to give a talk to engineering students at the Nav Centre.
