He toiled in California's farm fields alongside his Mexican migrant worker parents and didn't learn English until he was 12. Now Jose Hernandez, NASA astronaut, is about to rocket into orbit.

His parents will be in Florida next week for space shuttle Discovery's launch, as will his two older brothers and sister, who also worked the cucumber, sugar beet and tomato fields back in the 1960s and 1970s.

"A lot of kids loved summer vacation," Hernandez said in a recent interview. "We dreaded it because we knew what that meant. That meant we were going to be working seven days a week in the fields."

Hernandez, 47, vividly recalls being dusty, sweaty and tired in the back seat of the family's car after a hard day of labour. Before starting the engine, his father would look back at his children and tell them, "Remember this feeling because if you guys don't do well in school, this is your future."

"That was pretty powerful," Hernandez recalled.

Read the full article here: Ex-farm worker to blast into space