Where Are They Now – The Characters from A Million Miles Away written by the Ent. This post contains affiliate links, you can find out more on our policies page or in the disclaimer at the bottom of the blog. The images in this post come from the A Million Miles Away Press Kit.
- What happened to all of the Characters from A Million Miles Away
- What Happened to José Hernandez from A Million Miles Away
- What Happened to Adela from A Million Miles Away
- What Happened to Sturckow from A Million Miles Away
- What Happened to Miss Young from A Million Miles Away
- What Happened to the Rest of the STS-128 Crew from A Million Miles Away
- Quick notes on Some Other Characters from A Million Miles Away
What happened to all of the Characters from A Million Miles Away
A Million Miles Away tells the story of José Hernandez on his journey to become an astronaut. There are many characters, most of which are family. After watching this movie, many people have wondered what happened to these characters and if they were real to begin with. So, let’s check out what happened to the characters from A Million Miles Away.
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If you would like more detail you can check out these articles.
-TheCinemaholic.com: José’s Wife and Children, Miss Young
–Nasa.gov: Provides data for Hernandez and Sturckow
José Hernandez’ socials here
–Instagram
–Twitter
What Happened to José Hernandez from A Million Miles Away
After his successful flight on the STS-128 Discovery, José continued to work at NASA until his retirement in 2011. At this point, he moved to California to be closer and help with his family. He has a farm in California that he still works. He has also become a prolific public speaker and continues to tell his inspiring story to many!
What Happened to Adela from A Million Miles Away
Adela was much more than just a supportive wife and mother. It can easily be said that without her, José would not have reached the accomplishments he did and she had some fantastic accomplishments of her own. She did end up opening a restaurant around the Johnson Space Center. When José retired from NASA, Adela closed the restaurant and they both moved to Lodi, California to be closer to family, where they still reside today.
What Happened to Sturckow from A Million Miles Away
Colonel Sturckow continued to work at NASA until he left in 2013 to pursue other interests. Sturckow is still involved in space work. His most recent project was the famous Richard Branson flight in 2018 and is still involved with Virgin Galactic. You can read more about that flight here. Sturckow is married and currently resides in California.
Related Read: Radioactive- The Story of Madame Curie
What Happened to Miss Young from A Million Miles Away
This is a bit of an interesting one to research. José has credited Ms. Young on a few different occasion for encouraging and inspiring him to reach for his dreams. It is believed that Ms. Young has retired and is living a private life. From what I could find, it does appear she is still living.
Related Read: 10 Lessons from Brene Brown’s Atlas of the Heart
What Happened to the Rest of the STS-128 Crew from A Million Miles Away
We have already discussed what happened with José and Sturckow. We will do a quick summary of what happened to the rest of the STS-128 crew:
–Kevin Ford (Pilot): Retired in 2018, but became and remains a Technical Consultant for NASA
–Patrick Forrester: Remained working at NASA and has logged over 950 hours in space. It appears that he retired at some point between 2009 and 2011
–Christer Fuglesang: Left NASA in 2010, but remains active in the space exploration (Currently through Saab) and also is a professor at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology.
–John Olivas: Also left NASA in 2010, and now serves as the Director of Systems Engineering at Collins Aerospace.
–Nichole Stott: She was the first person to Live Tweet from space. She now encourages kids to combine their love of art and space as the Director of Space For Art Foundation, Inc.
–Timothy Kopra: Left Nasa in 2010. Timothy now is the CEO of Nanoracks LLC and the co-founder of Blue Bear Capital LLC.
Lots of the current data for these people were found through LinkedIn.
Quick notes on Some Other Characters from A Million Miles Away
–Salvador and Julia: After José retired from NASA, he and his family moved to California to take care of his parents. According to Jose’s socials, he still regularly farms with his father. I could not find any recent information on his mother, Julia.
–Beto: It is believed that the unfortunate fate of Beto in the movie is how it happened in reality. Beto was José’s cousin who was killed in a drive by.
–Kalpana Chawla: Kalpana was a great astronaut and a friend to many. As shown in the movie, Kalpana was on board the Colombia when it exploded. She died in this explosion in February 2003. She was survived by her husband Jean-Pierre Harrison.
-The Hernandez Children: Jose and Adela had five children and all of them are now grown adults. All of them have entered the STEM field, except one who is becoming a social media mogul!
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