Name: Brad Hoover 
DOB: August 2, 1990
Major: Aerospace Engineering
Class Standing: Senior
Brad was born and raised in the St.Petersburg area and moved to Orlando to attend UCF in 2011. Aside from being heavily involved in space related research for the past few years, Brad enjoys traveling, playing basketball, drums and guitar. “I am destined to make my contribution to the NewSpace industry and I cannot wait to see where the future of space travel takes us,” Brad said.
Brad is helping with the design of CATE, but he is mostly involved in manufacturing the hardware for this experiment. He is most looking forward to experiencing weightlessness of course… “But, I am also very excited about seeing something with so many hours invested coming to fruition. All of the hard work put into this experiment will make the flight so much more enjoyable,” he said.
After graduation, Brad is very interested in human spaceflight and ultimately wants to contribute to continuing the exploration of our Solar System. CATE is helping him get there because he secretly wants to be an astronaut one day, so learning to function effectively in a microgravity environment is a useful qualification.
A fun fact about Brad is that he can 360 dunk a basketball. He said that if he could be an animated character that he would be Buzz Lightyear because he’s an astronaut too. Also, if he could be an animal he would be a giraffe because standing at six feet six inches tall he is frequently told that he resembles one.
Finally, if he had to choose celebrity parents they would be “Hugh Jackman because he’s so dreamy and Kate Winslet because without her this opportunity would not be the same,” Brad said.