KEATING — Third-grader Christian Graham’s shirt sported a guitar-playing astronaut.

Across the table sat a man who worked on space suits for all NASA flight programs.

These two — separated by some 70 years in age — had a lot to talk about.

James McBarron II visited Keating Elementary School on Tuesday as part of a year-long program to learn more about NASA’s space program.

McBarron, 81, was a student test subject from 1958 to 1961 in trials designed to determine human endurance in extreme environmental conditions. His career at NASA began in 1961. He worked on Project Mercury, the Gemini Project, and the Apollo 9, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, and Apollo 15 missions.

James Loftus coordinated McBarron’s visit, which also included a stop at Baker High School. Loftus is the founder of the JPL Museum in Stayton that honors the NASA career of his father, Joseph P. Loftus Jr., who worked at the Johnson Space Center.

Part of the museum’s mission is to bring the experience of NASA to rural areas.

This year Loftus, along with Oregon Connections Academy, launched a new program called Remote and Distant Interactive Online Sessions (RADIOS) that brings live broadcasts from Space Center Houston into classrooms across Oregon.

Space Center Houston is the official visitors center for the Johnson Space Center and a nonprofit education foundation that helped with the RADIOS program, along with support from the NASA Alumni League, and grants from PacifiCorp Foundation, and Santiam Hospital.

Keating is one of the schools chosen to participate. The first broadcast on Oct. 17 explained life aboard the International Space Station.

The astronauts showed, for example, how liquid turns into a series of floating droplets in space.

“They played with their coffee,” Graham said.

The RADIOS program is live with Houston.

“They are engaging with the kids,” said Amanda Wilde, head teacher and principal at Keating. “Every school can submit three questions. Our first question was ‘can you bring pets to space with you?’ ”

Keating students — 32 from preschool to grade 6 — will incorporate space into this year’s lessons.

“We’ll make this a year-long learning project,” Wilde said.

Life at NASA

After joining the students for a lunch of homemade chili and cornbread, McBarron detailed his life with NASA.

But first, Loftus asked the group a question.

“Why am I here? This is a question each and every one of you will ask yourself. Only you can answer that question,” he said.

There are, he continued, two types of people in the world — those who look down and those who look up.

“Those who look up see the beauty in this world,” Loftus said. “My friend Jim here looked up and he helped put a man on the moon.”

Then McBarron took the floor. He said he wanted to be a physicist, but a college professor told him: “Your math isn’t good enough to be a physicist.”

The professor suggested either biology or geology.

“What’s geology?” he remembers asking.

Once he learned it was the study of rocks, that became his choice of study at the University of Dayton in Ohio.

It was there, at Wright Patterson Air Force Base Aeromedical Laboratory, that he became a student test subject.

One test aimed to see how long an astronaut could sit in a capsule deprived of oxygen before experiencing hypoxia. The only issue? The sturdy tape used to fix a seam took longer than anticipated to remove.

“I went almost unconscious,” McBarron said. “That was a very hazardous test.”

Another test: blow 400 mph winds in the face of a helmet to make sure it stayed intact.

He officially became a NASA employee in 1961 as an aerospace technologist.

His stories follow the American space program and he references names known to many: John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth; Ed White, who conducted the first U.S. spacewalk; and German-American aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun, who led the development of rocket technology.

Then McBarron talked about the Apollo missions. Apollo 9 with the first two-man spacewalk from a command lunar module, and Apollo 11 that, in July 1969, landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon.

McBarron was there during the Apollo 13 crisis that inspired a book and movie. McBarron referenced the scene when a man in charge dumps items on a table and challenges everyone to find a solution to build a carbon dioxide filter that would keep the Apollo 13 crew alive as they traveled back to Earth.

McBarron was there, in the real-life crisis.

“I was one of those guys who had to solve the problem,” he said.

To end his talk, McBarron gave the students three bits of advice:

“Decisions have consequences and determine your life path.”

“Continuing education is important.”

“You must enjoy work to be successful at it.”

Then it was time for the students to find out more.

Graham asked what it felt like to be inside a spacesuit.

“You feel clumsy,” McBarron said.

Another asked if the helmet fogs up when an astronaut breathes. It can, McBarron said, but a solution containing Joy dish soap helps alleviate the problem.

He told them how many layers make up a space suit (11) and the thickness of the helmet glass (almost a quarter-inch).

“We’ll make this a year-long learning project.”

— Amanda Wilde, head teacher and principal at Keating Elementary School