Above: “What we’ve learned (in space) comes right back down to earth,” Capt. Stephen Bowen told Abbey students. Photo by Richard W. Dionne Jr.

PORTSMOUTH — Capt. Stephen Bowen, a former NASA astronaut who’s logged nearly 40 days in space, urged students at Portsmouth Abbey Friday to retain everything they learn while prepping for a test.

You just never know, he said, when you might need that information again.

“I never thought I’d be on a third spaceflight,” said Capt. Bowen, USN, a veteran of three Space Shuttle missions to the International Space Station (ISS) and only the second submariner to leave our atmosphere.

Wearing an aqua-colored NASA spacesuit, Capt. Bowen, 51, spoke in the Abbey’s auditorium for the school’s final lecture of the academic year. Growing up in Cohasset, Mass., Capt. Bowen said he never planned on being an astronaut. After projecting an image of his grade 6 class photo, he told students, “Back when I was in the fifth, sixth grade or younger, flying to space was new.”

Perhaps in a sign of things to come, however, when assigned by his teacher to design a postage stamp, he drew a picture of the Apollo spacecraft.

Capt. Bowen acknowledged he wasn’t the best student during his early schooling.  “My teacher told me, ‘You are in the lowest reading group,’” he said, which only motivated him to try harder in school. “I worked real hard. One of the things I figured out was there is some reasons these teachers are teaching us stuff.”

He ended up graduating with good grades and enrolled in the U.S. Naval Academy. He spent 14 years in submarines and went to graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Capt. Bowen applied only once to be an astronaut, and said he was grateful when NASA selected him. “The selection rate to become an astronaut is .8 percent,” he said.

After he was chosen, he had to go back to school for two years, learning Russian and other skills along the way. He soon realized that while astronauts garner all the attention, the people behind the scenes are essential. “Flying in space is really a team sport,” he said.

His first Space Shuttle mission to the ISS was aboard the Endeavour in November 2008. During the 15-day trip, he spent about 20 hours on spacewalks, mainly to work on the Space Station’s solar panels.

“I’m going on my very first spacewalk and I’ve got a grease gun,” he quipped.

While some may believe being an astronaut is a glamorous job, he said it’s not always so. “Ninety percent of what we do is not flying in space,” he said. “You’re doing a lot of grunt work.”

You’re also in cramped quarters, as a photo of his 2008 Thanksgiving meal with crew members illustrated. “And the food wasn’t as good,” he said.

His second mission in May 2010 was aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis. He conducted two spacewalks during the 11-day trip. His third and final flight was in March 2011 aboard Discovery, when he became the first and only astronaut to fly in consecutive Space Shuttle missions. He conducted two more spacewalks during the 12-day mission.

Like a submarine

Being inside the cramped quarters of the ISS isn’t much different than a submarine, Capt Bowen said. “It even smelled the same,” he said.

Communications are better in the ISS, however, compared to being a couple of thousand feet underwater. “You get to call home,” he said, adding that he missed his family the most, followed by regular food.

After each mission, Capt. Bowen said, he had to physically adjust to life back in an atmosphere with gravity. “When I came back from space, my calves ached. It’s just so nice to float,” he said.

Capt. Bowen said while many taxpayers criticize the space program as being too expensive (despite taking up a much smaller chunk of the federal budget now than in the ’60s), it’s a bargain when one considers all the space research that’s being applied to technology on earth.

“What we’ve learned comes right back down to earth,” he said, referring to recycling (the Space Station recycles 80 percent of its wastewater), osteoporosis research and other fields. “It’s amazing how things have changed so rapidly in the past 30 years.”

‘Don’t try this at home’

Capt. Bowen amused his audience by showing films of the astronauts goofing around in the weightless environment of the Space Station — doing backflips, spinning a knob off a screw and into the air, etc. Students laughed when one crew member threw a piece of jello at another, who caught it in his mouth.

“Don’t try this at home,” said Capt. Bowen. “Only astronauts are allowed to play with their food.”

He ended the program by presenting Portsmouth Abbey with a framed NASA plaque which featured a small American flag that he said had logged 5.3 million miles in space.