Canfield native develops cargo for farewell space-shuttle flight
By Christine Keeling
ckeeling@vindy.com
CANFIELD
A Canfield fam- ily’s Fourth of July tradition helped to shape the cargo scheduled to lift off Friday with space shuttle Atlantis.
As a youth, Brian Roberts used to spend Independence Day in his backyard with his mother and father, Joanne and Thomas, and brothers, Thomas and Keith, launching rockets instead of fireworks.
Now, at 41, he is the robotics demonstrations and test manager at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. His team helped create the Robotic Refuel Mission module that will be tested on the International Space Station. It will allow satellites to be refueled or repaired from Earth.
Roberts said preparing for a 4-H model rocket launch as a kid was the first activity that piqued his interest in space. Later, a high school essay assignment and a handy Time magazine article about the Challenger shuttle accident introduced him to the intricacies of space travel.
Canfield Superintendent Dante Zambrini, who was Roberts’ English teacher in high school, remembered his former student as an extraordinary young man.
“He is in the top five of students I have worked with in 35 years,” said Zambrini. “I knew anyone who hired him was going to get a top-notch employee.”
Read the full story Monday in The Vindicator and on Vindy.com.