Astronauts have a mission at Harrison High School

In more than 50 years, only a few dozen people have flown in space.

Monday, Harrison High School students got a chance to meet three of them.

The astronauts answered questions from the students and talked about their time in orbit.

All three of them told us that they had important missions in space but that talking to students was just as important.

Col. Benjamin Drew said, “we need them interested, those that have the talent, those that have the ambition to feel like that’s something that they can do.”

There’s so many issues that we vote on or we vote for representatives who vote on that are fairly technical – and we need to understand a little bit,” said Dr. Cathryn Thornton.

“We’re trying to give some back and come back and try (to) inspire these kids with our adventures,” said Leroy Chaiao.

The astronauts are in town for the Space Symposium which goes through Thursday.