As a NASA astronaut, Mike Massimino spacewalked four times to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. When he retired in 2014 and began giving talks about his experiences, he assumed audiences would want to hear about the thrills of those exploits. Instead, he found himself fielding questions that were broader and deeper: How did he weather disappointments? Why didn’t he give up when NASA rejected him three times before accepting him? “The space stories just help them remember the takeaways, the lessons I learned from making mistakes.”

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Persons: Mike Massimino spacewalked, “, ” Massimino Organizations: NASA, Hubble, American Museum of, Columbia University Locations: Manhattan