Astronaut Mike Massimino Talks the Wonders of Hubble Space Telescope, Tweeting from Space and Being the Target of a 'Saturday Night Live' Bit [HNGN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW]

As John Glenn wrote in "Infinite Worlds," the Hubble Telescope has "rewritten the book on astronomy," and it has been doing so for 25 years. This spring, the Hubble will celebrate its 25th anniversary at an exhibit at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, Hubble@25, co-curated by Mike Massimino, a former NASA astronaut and current senior advisor of space programs at the Intrepid Museum, commemorates what Massimino calls "the greatest scientific invention ever built."

Massimino, known to his Twitter followers as @Astro_Mike, travelled to space, not once, but twice. He says he caught the space bug when he was six and first saw Neil Armstrong walk on the moon, but didn't think much of it as he grew up. It wasn't until he got out of college that the engineer decided to pursue a masters degree (and later, a doctoral degree) and work at NASA.

In "Infinite Worlds," Massimino wrote that he was "the luckiest rookie space flyer since Alan Bean" – The Oceanside, N.Y. native, on his first flight to space, was the first rookie to take a spacewalk around the Hubble.

Massimino recalled his experience in the vacuum of space, 350 miles above the blue dot:

"It was so beautiful that it brought me to tears, which immediately caused terror, as I was concerned about introducing water into my space suit, creating some kind of problem, and having to admit during the ensuing investigation that I had cried. My astronaut colleagues never did let me live that down."

Massimino recently spoke to HNGN in an exclusive interview. Along with a dry wit and sharp intellect, the former astronaut doesn't hide his passion for the Hubble and everything it has done for mankind.

The Hubble is celebrating 25 years. What has the Hubble given to us in a quarter century?

It's given us a look into the universe that we would never have even imagined. If you look at the images of the universe that it's shown, it's taken us beyond places where we can't go. It's also not only answered questions and shown us the beauty of the universe, but it's also come up with questions that we don't have answers to; for example, dark energy and dark matter were both formulated by using Hubble.

Dark energy's discovery resulted in a Nobel Prize. Hubble has lead to one Nobel Prize – I think it's going to lead to more. It's also discovered things that people had hypothesized. Astronomers thought that black holes existed. The Hubble proved that there are black holes. There was also the hypothesis that there were planets around other solar systems and Hubble showed us there are, so it has increased our understanding of the universe and it's also shown us the wonder of what's out there.

There is newer technology and sharper images coming from missions like Dawn – we're going deep space. Is the Hubble becoming obsolete or will it still continue to serve a function?

Because it's above our atmosphere, we have a better view into the universe than any ground-based telescope. Because of the upgrades it's had over the years, it's still the most powerful telescope available. There is a new telescope that is being built called the James Webb Space Telescope that'll be launched in a couple years. That will have more discovery power than the Hubble, but even if that goes successfully, the Hubble will continue to work until it doesn't work anymore. Until it dies or fails, it will keep providing great discoveries.

You teach at Columbia University in New York City. Any future astronauts in your classes?

I teach a class called Introduction to Human Space Flight and yeah, I probably got a couple – I know I've got people working in the space program and I bet I've got a couple future astronauts in there too.

Growing up, did your kids get how cool your job was or did they grow up, like, "Oh, dad's going to space... whatever?"

Did you think your dad was cool?

Well, my dad was my principal in grade school. (laughing)

Well, did that make him cool or not?

No, not at all. (laughing)

Yeah, OK. It doesn't matter: your dad is still not gonna be cool! No. My kids didn't think I was cool. They still don't think I'm cool. My daughter's calling in and I wish I could take this call so you could listen to what she would say. She would say, "Dad, you're not cool." No, my kids? No. I was a dad. (laughing)

The only time at all they (my kids) thought I was cool was, I was the first guy to Tweet from space and that got made fun of on "Saturday Night Live." When they made fun of me on "Saturday Night Live" that Saturday, I was in space. They got back to school on Monday and all their friends thought it was pretty cool that their dad got made fun of on "Saturday Night Live." That's probably the only credibility I got with my kids and it was short-lived.

That Tweet was in 2009. Was social media something you were into or was that NASA's way of saying, "One small step for man, one giant leap..." in the new age.

That's how they made fun of me on Saturday Night Live! They said we got from that quote to what I wrote in 40 years and made fun of it.

I don't remember when that Twitter stuff started, but around 2008, the flight I was on for the Hubble was getting a lot of attention at the time as we were preparing to do it. I guess the public affairs people were interested in getting into the Twitter thing and they wanted an astronaut to Tweet from space. And we just happened to be the next flight in line, so they asked me out of the crew, they said, "Hey, would you like to do this Twitter thing?" I was like, "I don't know what it is, but sure." I started Tweeting during my training and I really liked it. For me it was a great way to share the experience and it's only 140 characters. I was writing a blog for a while, but I did three blogs and I was like "eh." There were mistakes and spelling errors – it was too complicated. The Twitter thing was only 140 characters and there is only so much you can screw up in 140 characters. I still Tweet every once in a while, so that's kind of fun.

Social media seems to have changed NASA's game. It's getting quite a boost, it seems.

Yeah, it is. There's a lot of interest in the space program. It's not just NASA - it's also these entrepreneurs and these private space companies and people buying tickets to take rides into space. There are movies that have come out like "Gravity" and "Interstellar." I think they've created a lot of interest in the space program. I think it's all good.

How do you feel about the efforts by Richard Branson and Elon Musk in bringing space travel to the private sector?

I think it's great. I think that hopefully the timing is right and they'll be successful. I think they are both really smart guys and they can spend their money doing all kinds of things and they've decided to get into space travel. So, you've got the world's greatest entrepreneurs – two of them you mentioned, there are others as well – that see this as a way to make a lot of money. It's kind of like Howard Hughes got involved with aircrafts and airplanes at the outset, and I think these guys are doing the same with space travel. I think it's very exciting. I think it's the only way that the space program can continue to thrive is with private industry these entrepreneurs getting involved.

It seems to be competitive to get chosen to go into space. Is it super intense?

Well, the competitive part mainly is getting selected to be an astronaut, I mean, even now, the last selection we had somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 applicants and they selected eight people. That's kind of tough. And out of however many thousand, 80 or 90 percent are qualified to do the job. It's rough to get picked – it's definitely the competitive part of it. It's near impossible, but if you're lucky enough to get selected, like me and my fellow astronauts were who were fortunate enough to get picked.

Then once that happens, then you kind of form a big team and you do your job, you work together, and you stay healthy and you get assigned to a space flight. So, the competitive part of it is just because it's hard to get selected to be an astronaut, but once you get selected, you're part of the team and you have a pretty good chance of going.

You went twice to fix the Hubble and your second time was a historical mission...

The two missions I was on were both the Hubble. You can learn all about them if you come to the Intrepid Museum actually. We have Hubble@25 exhibit and it features stuff from both of our flights and all of the Hubble flights. It shows some of the things we did from that second mission, Servicing Mission 4, which was the final Hubble mission. We did a repair of instruments on-site. Usually, you'd just replace an instrument if something was wrong with it – you'd take it out and put a whole new one in, but on servicing mission four we went in there a took the instruments apart – performed brain surgery on the telescope. You can see the actual tools (at the exhibit) that flew in space and the way we trained. Some of the artifacts that we took back are shown here at the museum and tell the story pretty well. So, the historic part of that mission was it was the final one. It was a little bit unique in what we were doing and I think it's depicted well here at the museum. It's well worth the visit.

Final thoughts?

I think the thing is – you can argue about it – but I think it is the greatest scientific invention ever built. For an engineering perspective, it's amazing the way it works and how it can point very accurately at the sky. It travels 13,500 mph but it can fix on a point of sky with the accuracy of shooting a laser from the Empire State building and hitting a dime on the Washington Monument. So it's an incredible engineering machine and it also gives us this great scientific value where Nobel Prizes can be won and it unlocks the secrets of the universe and brings up with beauty of the universe. I think it's the greatest engineering and science instrument ever built and I would encourage your readers to learn more about it here at the museum. It really is a wonderful exhibit that we have here that depicts it, and the 25th birthday of Hubble is coming up in the spring so it's time to reflect and the cool thing about it is the telescope is still working and hopefully it'll still be working in April when we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the telescope. I think it's something the whole world can be excited and proud about and you know, we don't always get a chance to sit back and notice these great things that we do. I think we should celebrate that.