Many 7-year-olds who watched the Apollo astronauts bounce across the surface of the moon in July 1969 must have dreamed of following in their footsteps. But Bobby Curbeam, who was growing up in Woodlawn at the time, was more interested in "how everything worked."
"How the Saturn V engine worked, what kind of fuel they used," he recalled yesterday. "But I didn't think that much about being in space."
Twenty-five years later, being in space is about all that's on his mind. Now, he is Navy Lt. Cmdr. Robert L. Curbeam Jr., 32, a graduate of Woodlawn High School and the U.S. Naval Academy and one of the 19 members of the 1995 Astronaut Candidate class. He is to report in March to the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston to begin a year of training as a mission specialist. "It's still sinking in," he said as he sat in his office at the Naval Academy, where he has been teaching an introductory class in weapons systems.
He said he has been smiling a lot since he got the call from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Wednesday, which should be good news for his students.
"It's always good to have the prof in a good mood when finals time rolls around," said the first-time teacher, flashing a grin.
Commander Curbeam, a radar intercept officer aboard F-14 jets before he began teaching at the academy in August, was chosen from among nearly 3,000 applicants. He is one of four Naval Academy graduates in this class of astronaut candidates.
Academy officials brag that more of their graduates have become astronauts than those of any other service academy. Before Commander Curbeam's class of astronauts was chosen, 36 Naval Academy graduates had become astronauts.
Commander Curbeam, who decided when he was in junior high school that he wanted to go to the Naval Academy, graduated in 1984 with a degree in aerospace engineering. He received a master's degree and did postgraduate work at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. Although he is called an astronaut candidate, Commander Curbeam will most likely be assigned to a space shuttle mission. Only one candidate has not completed the program and become an astronaut, and that person dropped out voluntarily.
"Once selected as an astronaut candidate, they all become astronauts," said Kyle Herring, a NASA spokesman.
The other Naval Academy graduates in this class are Joseph Edwards of Richmond, Va., Dominic Gorie of Orange Park, Fla., and Kathryn Hire of Merritt Island, Fla.
The candidates will take classes in water survival, flight training and wilderness survival, and they will learn just about every inch of the space shuttle vehicle. They will also experience weightlessness on a KC-135 aircraft that flies parabolas over the Gulf of Mexico.
"It's basically like a roller coaster, only more so," Mr. Herring said.
Commander Curbeam said he hopes to get involved in the underwater training for mission specialists designated to do spacewalks.
"That's what I want to do. That's what I'm excited about," he said.
He says he has only one regret about being admitted to the program. He and his wife, Julie, and their children, Eva, 6, and Emerson, 2, will have to move from Annapolis, a city they had hoped to called home for a while. "We love Annapolis, so that's sort of a shame," he said.