José Moreno Hernández was born on August 7, 1962, in the community of French Camp in California. His family was originally from the municipality of La Piedad in western Mexico’s state of Michoacán. During much of his childhood, as a matter of fact, Hernández and his family routinely spent half the year in the United States and the other half in La Piedad. As Hernández has likewise recounted, he and his family worked alongside other farmworkers harvesting crops in fields throughout California.
Hernández, who did not learn how to speak English until he was 12, graduated from Franklin High School in Stockton, California. He went on to earn a B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of the Pacific in 1984 and an M.S. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1986.
Starting in 1990, Hernández was employed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California’s Bay Area. He left there in 2001 to begin working at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Hernández’s strong interest in space exploration can be traced as far back as 1972, when he watched TV coverage of the Apollo 17 mission to the Moon. His efforts to pursue his own career in space travel were easier said than done, however; he was turned down a total of 11 times for NASA astronaut training before finally being selected for that program in May 2004.
After the completion of this training in February 2006, Hernández was assigned to support operations at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on Merritt Island, Florida, that involved shuttle launch and landing preparations. In May 2007, he served as one of the aquanauts taking part in the 12th of the space exploration simulation missions officially known as the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO).
Hernández and the other members of the NEEMO-12 crew lived and worked for 11 days in the Aquarius underwater laboratory, which is located 3.5 miles (5.6 kilometers) off the coast of Key Largo, Florida, and within the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. This undersea research station is deployed 62 feet (19 meters) below the surface.
In 2009, Hernández flew into space as part of the seven-person crew of the STS-128 mission on board Space Shuttle Discovery. This mission launched from KSC on August 29. The mission’s duration was 13 days, 20 hours, 54 minutes, and 55 seconds; the distance traveled was 5.7 million miles (9.2 million kilometers). Hernández served as both a mission specialist and the flight engineer. In addition, he achieved a notable social media milestone when he became the first person in space to send out tweets in Spanish.
Hernández retired from NASA in 2011. He is now a regent of the University of California. Over the years, Hernández has received several honors for his professional accomplishments. These honors have included; the Society of Mexican American Engineers and Scientists (MAES) Medalla de Oro in 1999; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Outstanding Engineer Award in 2001; NASA Service Awards in 2002 and 2003; and the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute’s National Hispanic Heritage Award in 2016.
In 2014, a middle school in San Jose was renamed after Hernández. A Million Miles Away, a film about his NASA career, was released on Amazon Prime Video in 2023. This film was based on Hernández’s autobiography, which had been published in 2012.
Photo Credit: Public Domain
For more information on José Moreno Hernández, please check out https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/hernandez_jose.pdf
Transportation History 
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