SpaceX flying ex-football players, flight controller, Scout

X’s second crew has two military officers who played college football, a former shuttle flight controller, and first person in deces to launch aboard three kinds of rocketships.

three Americans and one Japanese should reach International Station late Monday for a five- to six-month stay, following Sunday's liftoff from NASA's Kennedy Center.

A brief look at each:

—Crew commander Mike Hopkins, 51, is an Air Force colonel and former station resident who grew up on a hog and cattle farm in Missouri. He played football for University of Illiis and, before becoming an astronaut in 2009, worked at Pentagon. He was working as a special assistant to vice chairman of Joints Chief of Staff when he got call from NASA. He and wife Julie have two college- sons.

—Navy Cmdr. Victor Glover, 44, is pilot and lone rookie. He’s from Los Angeles area and will be first African-American astronaut to move into station for a long stay. He wrestled and played football at California Polytechnic State University. When picked as a NASA astronaut in 2013, he was working as a legislative fellow for late Sen. John McCain. He and wife Dionna have four daughters.

—Shann Walker, 55, a Houston-born-and-raised physicist, also has lived before on station. Her husband, retired astronaut Andrew Thomas, helped build outpost. She worked as a flight controller at NASA’s Johnson Center and n behind scenes in station program, before becoming an astronaut in 2004. Her gruate studies at Rice University focused on atmosphere of Venus.

— Japanese ncy’s Soichi guchi, 55, ar former station resident, is only third person to launch on three s of craft. (He follows late Wally Schirra and John Young) He’s alrey flown on a U.S. shuttle — first mission after 2003 Columbia accident — and a Russian Soyuz. A three-time gruate of University of Tokyo, engineer and longtime Scout became an astronaut in 1996. Two grown daughters live in Tokyo; his youngest joined him and his wife Miwa in Houston.

Im credits: AP