Space station astronaut shares out-of-this-world stories at West Madison

An astronaut who logged 163 days on the International Space Station (ISS) shared his adventures with students at West Madison Elementary School.

Astronaut Timothy J. 'T.J.' Creamer shared stories with West Madison students. (Photo contributed)

Retired Col. Timothy J. ‘T.J.’ Creamer spoke about his experiences with command and control computers on the ISS. He developed numerous components of technology infrastructure for ISS.

Creamer agreed to an ‘unofficial’ visit in December at the request of family friend Cheryl Bailey, who teaches second grade at West Madison.

“We were honored to have an astronaut talk to us at West Madison,” principal Dr. Daphne Jah said in her blog. “The students were treated to a description of what it is like to live on the space station.”

In addition, Creamer showed numerous pictures of his time spent in space. “The students were very well behaved and asked lots of really good questions,” Jah said.

Creamer launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-17 crew capsule from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Dec. 21, 2009. Two days later, he docked with the Expedition 22 crew and was aboard until June 2, 2010 when the Expedition 23 crew returned to a safe landing in central Kazakhstan. He worked as a flight engineer and NASA science officer (jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/creamer.html).

Born in Fort Huachuca, Ariz., he grew up in Marlboro, Md. He earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Loyola College in Baltimore and a master’s degree in physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

At Loyola, Creamer was commissioned through ROTC as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. During his military career, he achieved positions as army aviator, section leader, platoon leader, flight operations officer, personnel staff officer, air cavalry troop commander and assistant professor at the U.S. Military Academy.

Continuing to work with NASA, Creamer now ha refocused on orbit support involving information technology, networking and missions beyond Low Earth Orbit, including Mars missions.