Science students at SCVi Charter School were given the opportunity to learn from a NASA pilot on Wednesday morning.

Manny Antimisaris spoke for a group of around 80 high school and middle school students about his job, flying the SOFIA plane, which uses a built in telescope to take pictures of space.

He also talked about the qualifications NASA looks for, his favorite parts of the job as well as the learning curves he’s faced while working with different types of airplanes.

“I love flying. The spark lit when I first flew in an airline,” said Antimisaris. “I wanted to be a pilot and luckily I was able to do it through the military and then commercial airlines and now here at NASA.”

The plane Antimisaris pilots, SOFIA, flies above 98 percent of earth’s atmosphere to capture infrared pictures of space.

Antimisaris was very encouraging to the students saying “chase your passion, chase whatever excites you. That’s what you should be going after, whether it’s piloting, race car driving, gourmet chef, whatever it is, just go after that passion. Go after what excites you”

“If you would have told me 30 years ago I would be wearing this,” he said, pointing to his NASA name tag, “I would’ve thought you were crazy”.

Antimisaris told students about internship opportunities at NASA and how they could start a career as a NASA pilot.

His appearance ties into a project launch for both high school and middle school science classes.

“We’re going to be doing a project where they (students) will be designing a glider or something similar, so they can apply these concepts to their project,” said Zaloa Goiri, a SCVi high school facilitator. “The idea is to bring speakers and have real life examples so that everybody sees that there is something out there that is applicable to what we’re learning in the classroom”

Goiri continued, “I’m excited because we have the opportunity to blend real life with our classroom and that is super important to me. I feel super fortunate that I have this opportunity and that the (students) have this opportunity to see people like Manny Antimisaris.”