Former Migrant Worker Aims for the Moon

In November, after the walnuts and grapes were in, Salvador and Julia Hernandez packed their four children in the car and headed south through California's Central Valley to the Mexican state of Michoacan, 1,700 miles away.

"It took 2 1/2 days," remembered Jose M. Hernandez, the youngest of the four. "My dad put cans of Campbell's soup on the engine manifold so they would heat up. Then we'd open them and eat the soup in the back seat."

On May 6, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration chose Jose Hernandez, the son of Mexican migrant farmworkers from Stockton, Calif., and Michoacan, as an astronaut candidate, destined, perhaps, to be the next human to set foot on the moon.

"I still remember as a kid the tail end of the Apollo missions, and the desire to become an astronaut never went away," Hernandez said in a recent interview at NASA headquarters. "I always aggressively sought jobs that would enhance my credentials."

His credentials are considerable. Hernandez, now 41, is a materials engineer at Houston's Johnson Space Center and an expert in X-rays, tomography, ultrasound, and other nondestructive means of medical and materials analysis. As part of the 11-member astronaut class of 2004, he will train as a mission specialist.

Before joining NASA in 2001, he worked for the Department of Energy, where he helped develop the inspection techniques and monitoring procedures used in the disposal of 15 tons of Russian enriched uranium.

And at the DOE's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the 1990s, he and a colleague used experience gained working on the Reagan administration's X-ray laser defense initiative to develop the first full-field digital mammography system for detecting breast cancer in women.

Along the way, he also become president of the Society of Mexican-American Engineers and Scientists, an avid runner who has participated in the Marine Corps Marathon and the father of five children.

All this from a short, slightly built man with a mustache who did not speak English until he was 12: "It was probably because of the language barrier that I had a greater knack for numbers and math," he said.

Hernandez was born in French Camp, Calif., just outside Stockton, the family's final stop on its annual "California circuit," which began in February, when they arrived in California's Central Valley and headed for the strawberry fields near the city of Ontario.

"Then we'd move north to Salinas, for lettuce," Hernandez recalled. "And then to Stockton, for cherries, cucumbers, apricots, peaches, tomatoes. . . . We finished with grapes" in October, he said, then drove back to Michoacan for an extended Christmas vacation.

But "during all the stops, we went to school," Hernandez said. "We didn't work Monday through Friday, but always on the weekends. And late in the school year, when all the kids were looking forward to summer vacation, I was dreading it."

It was sometime during grammar school in the early 1970s when Hernandez's itinerant life began to change. He went to his teacher late in the harvest season to pick up enough homework to tide him over until the next circuit began, but the teacher insisted on talking with his parents.

They had some bright kids, who needed some stability, the teacher told them. " 'You should put down some roots' is the way it came out," Hernandez recalled. "After that we stayed with the same school district -- we adapted well."