First they were Jersey kids, then they were astronauts. Where are they now?

Astronaut and Jersey-native Mark Kelly made headlines again this month when he launched his campaign for U.S. Senate in Arizona. But Kelly and his twin brother, Scott, aren’t the only Jersey kids that looked up at the stars, aspired to be astronauts — and actually did it.

We caught up with some other New Jersey-raised astronauts to find out what they’re up to.

Garrett Reisman, Parsippany

Garrett Reisman, who grew up in Parsippany, is now a professor at the University of Southern California and consultant for Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

Reisman said he had an average childhood in New Jersey. He attended Lake Hiawatha elementary school where he checked out every library book about airplanes, he said. He was obsessed with flying; he watched the Apollo 11 films on a Super 8 movie projector so frequently that the film regularly broke, he said. He fixed it with Scotch Tape.

He built model rockets and fired one off in a field behind the elementary school. The launch field was too small and the rocket landed in the trees.

“For all I know it is still there,” he joked.

But throughout his high school years, he never thought he would become an astronaut. All the guys on the Apollo 11 were test pilots, and Reisman’s mom hated flying. She’d never let him become a pilot, he recalled thinking.

Reisman set his goals on becoming a mechanical engineer, like his dad, or a doctor. Reisman’s family frequented the Reservoir Tavern for pizza and the Dover Diner, where Reisman said he got elephant ears for dessert.

He had his bar mitzvah Temple Beth Am in Parsippany and the reception on the Ramada Inn on Route 10.

He was on the wrestling team at Parsippany High School and was on the wrestling team, then went on to the University of Pennsylvania, then graduated with his Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology, before getting hired by NASA.

The astronaut lived on the bottom of the sea for two weeks, and later went into space two times, completing three space walks. According to NASA, Reisman was the first Jewish crew member on the International Space Station.

On one of his trips into space, Reisman scoured the Earth, trying to spot his hometown.

“It was somewhere right in the middle of the state, he said. “You didn’t even know where the Delaware River is. Finally, I found the Jersey City reservoir, and the little island on it.

So of course, he took a photo. Reisman said it is the only human-taken photo from space of Parsippany — the town where his model rocket may still be in the trees.

George Zamka, born in Jersey City

George Zamka, who was born in Jersey City’s now-closed Margaret Hague hospital, is now Assistant Vice President of defense at Tactical Air Support, a defense contractor that consults and trains U.S. and allied forces.

He was a pilot and commander for NASA and logged more than 692 hours in space.

Zamka was 2 years old his family moved to Manhattan but he has fond memories of playing with his cousins in Sayreville.

The city kid said visiting the township was like taking “a trip to the country.” Now, when he hears Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” he is taken back to those childhood summer days and his cousins’ screened-in porch.

When they would stop at gas stations, attendants would give the kids free lunar landing models to assemble for fun on their drives.

Zamka said his family passed under the Lincoln Tunnel when they returned home from their visits. One of those return trips happened on the day of the Apollo 11 landing, he said.

“We went under tunnel right as Armstrong was about to step foot on the moon,” he said. “Apollo is the biggest thing going on anywhere. To have missed it was a significant thing.”

Years later, that missed moment would be redeemed.

Zamka graduated from the United States Naval Academy and earned his Master of Science degree in Engineering Management from Florida Institute of Technology, before serving as a Navy pilot and instructor. He was then chosen to go to Houston to be an astronaut-in-training, according to NASA.

That is when he ran into Neil Armstrong in an elevator.

“He looked kind of like a bewildered professor,” Zamka said.

Armstrong asked Zamka to show him to a lecture hall.

“It didn’t occur to me that this guy could be Neil Armstrong,” he said. That is, until Armstrong took off his glasses and started the lesson.

Zamka, who has Polish and Colombian ancestors, completed his first spaceflight in 2007. He was a pilot on STS-120. In 2010, his second spaceflight, Zamka commanded the crew of STS-130.

Greg Linteris, Demarest

Greg Linteris is a mechanical engineer at the fire research division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a government agency.

He was born in Demarest and attended Princeton in 1979.

In 1997, Linteris went on two NASA space shuttle missions, where he conducted science experiments while orbiting earth for twenty days.

Buzz Aldrin, Montclair

Buzz Aldrin is staying in the media lime light with the 50-year anniversary of his historic moon walk coming up this July.

Aldrin, now 89, was the second man to walk on the moon, just after Neil Armstrong. He spent a total of almost 290 hours in space, including almost 8 hours of extra vehicle activity, according to NASA. Aldrin is spending his time on earth mixing with other stars; a few weeks ago he had a humorous Twitter exchange with Ariana Grande, who recently released a song titled “NASA.”

Aldrin occasionally visits his Montclair childhood home. During a recent visit, he attended a ceremony where his middle school, Mt. Hebron, was named after him. Aldrin credited his years at the school as the “turning point” for him in wanting to become an astronaut, according to previous NJ Advance Media reports.

William Pailes, Kinnelon

Born in Hackensack and raised in Kinnelon, Pailes orbited the earth 64 times on his various trips into space.

According to a 1970s high school yearbook, Pailes played baseball and football for Kinnelon High School as well as participating in the National Honor Society and being class treasurer.

As of 2015, Pailes was working at Temple High School in Texas as a Air Force JROTC teacher.

Wally Schirra, Hackensack

The only man to fly in all three of NASA’s original manned spaceflight programs, Schirra was born in Hackensack and went on to study at the Newark College of Engineering (NJIT).

Like many astronauts, Schirra got his start as a test pilot for the U.S. Navy.

His missions laid the groundwork for the Apollo 11 mission, which would put Armstrong and Aldrin on the moon.

Schirra was born to fly, according to an Associated Press report. His father was a War World I fighter pilot, and his mother sometimes sat on the wing of his father’s biplane during county fair performances.

Schirra died of a heart attack at the age of 84 in 2007.

Rusty Schweickart, Neptune

Russell “Rusty” Schweickart was born in Neptune Township in 1935 and attended Manasquan High School, according to his NASA profile.

The Schweickart family’s stated income when he applied for scholarships for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was listed as $18,000 according to a Pacific Sun Article. He not only graduated from MIT, but then went on to become a pilot and was later hired by NASA.

On the Apollo 9 mission, Schwickart became the first man to do extravehicular activity (EVA) without an umbilical cord to the spacecraft; he was tethered to the spacecraft but he received oxygen and other resources from a backpack. Schwickart’s successful EVA proved that astronauts would be able to transfer between vehicles without needing connecting passageways.

Schwickart had an active post-NASA career, and is known most prominently for founding B612, an organization that seeks to protect earth from incoming astroids.

Mark and Scott Kelly, West Orange

The only identical twins to fly in space, Mark and Scott Kelly have been icons of the space community.

They grew up on Mitchell Street in West Orange before moving to Greenwood Avenue. The twins attended Hazel Avenue Elementary School and always seemed to be in some sort of trouble.

“We both got stitches so often we sometimes would have the stitches from the previous injury removed during the same visit,” Scott Kelly wrote in his book “Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery.”

Their mother, Patricia Kelly, was the first female police officer in West Orange and their father, Richard Kelly, was also an officer.

During NASA’s twin study in 2017, Scott spent nearly a year in space, and NASA took the opportunity to see how space would change the way his genes were expressed compared to Mark Kelly, who acted as a control in the experiment.

Mark Kelly married former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), and recently declared his own run for senate. After an assassination attempt on Gifford, which left six others dead, Mark Kelly became an advocate for stricter gun laws and he stays active in discussions about space.

More than a year after his return to earth, scientists continue to study how Scott Kelly’s body changed in space and it’s adaptation back to earth. They hope the results will help them better prepare astronauts and their supporting technology for an eventual mission to mars.

Mark Polansky, Edison

Mark Polansky was born in Paterson but considers Edison to be his home, according to NASA.

He graduated from John P. Stevens High School and joined the Air Force after graduating from Purdue University.

During his time with NASA, he went on three trips into space which primarily focused on delivering materials and constructing additions to the International Space Station.

According to his Linkedin, Polansky is now a motivational speaker.

Kathryn Dwyer Sullivan Symbol, the first American woman to walk in space, was also born in Paterson, but calls California home.

Kenneth Ham, Plainfield & Clark

Kenneth Ham logged over 25 days in space during two missions.

The Plainfield native graduated from Arthur L. Johnson High School in Clark, where his guidance counselor recommended he take flying lessons.

“(Ham) mentioned that he enjoyed taking flying lessons at what was then known as Kupper Airport in Manville. The counselor pulled out a photo of the U.S. Navy’s Blue Angels stunt-flying team,” according to a previous Star-Ledger report.

The counselor asked if he wanted to do that.

“Hell yeah,” Ham said.

Ham went to the U.S. Naval Academy and flew combat missions over Iraq and Bosnia, before joining NASA. Like Zamka, he now works at Tactical Air Support where he is Assistant Vice President, according to Linkedin.

Cassidy Grom may be reached at cgrom@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her at @cassidygrom.

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