An American who's now aboard the International Space Station is a University of Illinois alum who once played football for the school.
Mike Hopkins and two Russians traveled in a Soyuz capsule Wednesday after blasting off from a launch pad in Kazakhstan to dock with the space station, where they'll spend the next six months.
The 44-year-old Air Force colonel earned a degree in aerospace engineering from Illinois in 1991, according to a report in The (Champaign) News-Gazette.
Officials at the school say he's the sixth alum to become an astronaut. This is his first mission.
"Needless to say we're very excited to have another former student get the chance to go to space," said Philippe Geubelle, who leads the school's aerospace engineering department. "I'm absolutely convinced that 90 to 100 percent of students join aerospace because they would like eventually to become astronauts. It's nice to see that some actually get to live the dream.
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