A North Carolina native connects with students from orbit

Space · Published 14 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: NASA Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn took his home state's curiosity into space. This video captures a unique educational exchange between an astronaut and students gathered in Raleigh.

NASA Flight Engineer Tom Marshburn, a native of Statesville, North Carolina, hosted a live educational event from the International Space Station on February 5. In Raleigh, pupils from the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences posed inquiries during the presentation.

Marshburn arrived at the orbital laboratory on December 21 via a Russian Soyuz spacecraft and was scheduled to return to Earth in mid-May.

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