USD-Magazine-Spring-2025

THIRTY-FOUR MINUTES.

That’s all the time it takes to travel more than 9,000 miles when you’re flying in a space capsule specifically designed to return astronauts to Earth. “I remember very distinctly being over Australia,” says NASA Astronaut Matthew Dominick ’05 (BS/BA). “We were going 7,000 miles per hour, and then we did a deorbit burn to slow about 100 meters per second and dip our orbit enough so that the atmosphere does the rest of the work. So, 34 minutes from over Australia to subsonic speeds over the Gulf of Mexico to parachute deployment to splashdown. That’s pretty awesome.”

By Matthew Piechalak

Photos: Courtesy of NASA

12 | University of San Diego Magazine