Proudly wearing the Russian flight suit he wore aboard the International Space Station, Air Force Lt. Col. Mike Fincke told Sewickley Academy pupils that he was living proof that dreams can come true.

	Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette Astronaut Mike Fincke poses for a photo with kindergarten pupils during his tour of the Sewickley Academy campus last Wednesday. Fincke graduated from Sewickley Academy in 1985. Click photo for larger image.

"My dream was to become an astronaut," Fincke told the high school students at his alma mater. "And the academy helped me achieve that dream."

The lofty goal of going into space was on Fincke's agenda when he was a student at Sewickley Academy, and his former teachers remembered him as a kid on a mission.

"I'm thrilled with his accomplishments," said English teacher Victoria Polinko. "I always knew he would [become an astronaut]. It was even written on his school application. He was interested in everything [that would further his goal]."

Last Wednesday, Fincke preached hard work and perseverance to the students, grinning with an almost childlike enthusiasm as he talked about weightlessness and sleeping on air.

The 37-year-old astronaut's return to his alma mater was the culmination of a full-circle adventure that literally took him around the world and back to his roots.

"I used to deliver the Post-Gazette when I was a kid," he said while visiting classrooms after his speech. "Now I'm in it."

Fincke was raised in Emsworth with a solid work ethic. The oldest of Edward and Alma Fincke's nine children, he and all of his siblings attended Sewickley Academy on scholarships. Fincke said he helped to pay for his education with a paper route.

His family still lives in Emsworth, where signs are now posted reading: "Emsworth: Home of Lt. Col. Mike Fincke."

Fincke, who lives in Houston, Texas, spent six months on the space station, returning in October. He flew to the space station in a Soyuz TMA-4 spacecraft and was assigned to the mission as a NASA space station science officer and flight engineer.

He and Cosmonaut Gennady Padalka, a colonel in the Russian Air Force, set a record by taking four space walks.

"We took the space station's longest space walk," Fincke said. "It was amazing to hang out in the open cosmos, with just a few millimeters of fabric between me and the universe. Wearing the space suit, I could still feel hot and cold. You can feel space, and I didn't realize it would be like that."

While on the mission, Fincke achieved another first -- he became the first astronaut to become a father while in orbit.

His daughter, Tarali, was born June 18. "I spoke to my wife on a satellite phone hookup while she was having the baby," he said.

Fincke and Padalka slept while standing in sleeping bags and they drank water recycled from the atmosphere.

Fincke's days were filled with experiments geared toward learning how different substances, such as liquids, behave in space. Even his body was used for learning.

"We measured how our bones change in space," he said. "Gennady and I did 2 1/2 hours of exercise a day, but we still had some muscle and bone loss." He also read 40 books about electronics.

Fincke, who is fluent in several languages, has spoken about his experiences to young people in other states and other countries, including Japan.

He is quick to credit Sewickley Academy's staff for helping him attain his ultimate goal of orbiting the Earth, which he did 16 times a day for the six months he was aboard the space station.

"We get a better perspective as we mature," said Fincke, who graduated from the school in 1985. "I didn't thank all my teachers as well as I should have for the patience and the knowledge they gave me. But today I got to thank them and will continue to thank them all as I see them."

Every time the space station floated over Pittsburgh, Fincke took a picture. He shot 21,000 photos during the six months he was in space, noting that photography is a hobby he first learned at the academy from photography teacher James Wardrop.

"One never truly leaves home in one's heart. Traveling at 17,000 mph, I could see the pyramids, the Amazon River, Mount Kilimanjaro -- and the Ohio River!" Fincke said.

The students wanted to know if hurtling toward Earth in a rocket ship was frightening.

"I guess I should have been scared, but I was fascinated. And thrilled," he said.

"It was like coming off of a really thrilling amusement park ride. We hit the ground pretty hard, but no one suffered any injuries. Gennady and I just looked around, giggling, because we were home, safe and sound. And our reaction to the whole thing was, 'When can we do this again?' "