The recipient of the 2008 NSCAA Honorary All-America award is out of this world.

Literally.

Dr. Sandra Magnus, this year's honoree, is a former standout for the Missouri S&T women's soccer team and NASA astronaut who currently is in orbit as a flight engineer on the International Space Station as part of Expedition 18. Her current mission began on Nov. 14, 2008, when the space shuttle Endeavour lifted off from the Kennedy Space Flight Center. She is scheduled to remain on the ISS until the end of February.

Magnus, who is making her second space mission aboard the space shuttle, played for the Missouri S&T women's soccer team in the 1980s and was inducted into the Miner Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003. During her playing career with the Lady Miners, she was a defender for a team that posted a 19-13 record during the 1983 and 1984 seasons and allowed an average of just one goal per contest in that stretch.

While serving on the mission, Magnus will be contributing to a blog from space to answer questions. She has provided answers to some of the questions prior to the mission and will continue to take questions over the next four months. The questions and answers, along with other commentary from Magnus and interactive NASA links, will be available at http://spacebook.mst.edu/.

Magnus is a native of Belleville, Ill., and received a bachelor's degree in physics from Missouri S&T in 1986 and a master's degree in electrical engineering from S&T in 1990. She earned a doctorate from Georgia Institute of Technology in 1996 after which she joined NASA.

Her previous space mission took place in 2002, when she made an 11-day trip into space to the International Space Station and operated Space Shuttle Atlantis' robotic arm.

The primary mission for Magnus and other crew members during this voyage is to install equipment needed to support a six-person crew aboard the space station. Currently, the station only has a crew of three people and that number will double next summer.

Magnus is the third astronaut to receive the NSCAA's Honorary All-America award. The inaugural award was presented in 1972 to Col. William Anders. The lunar module pilot for the Apollo 8 mission, Anders was part of the first crew to orbit the Moon. In 1991, Sonny Carter was the second astronaut to receive the honor. The award is presented to those who have brought particular distinction to soccer through their efforts within and beyond the boundaries of the sport.

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