You’ve probably seen the clips or heard the buzz about the mexican guy goes to space movie and wondered if it’s actually legit. Honestly, it sounds like one of those "too good to be true" Hollywood scripts, but the story of José Hernández is about as real as it gets. The movie is called A Million Miles Away, it hit Prime Video in 2023, and it stars Michael Peña. If you haven't seen it, you're missing out on a story that’s less about rocket ships and more about the sheer, stubborn grit of a guy who refused to take "no" for an answer—eleven times in a row.
It’s a biopic. It follows José from his days as a kid picking grapes in the San Joaquin Valley to the moment he finally floated in zero gravity.
Who Is the Guy in the Mexican Guy Goes to Space Movie?
The man is José Hernández. He wasn't just some guy who got lucky; he was a migrant farmworker who didn't even learn English until he was 12. Think about that for a second. While most future astronauts were probably attending space camps or acing science fairs in stable suburban schools, José was moving between Michoacán, Mexico, and various farms in California, depending on what crop was in season.
His life changed in 1972. He was ten years old, watching the Apollo 17 mission on a grainy black-and-white TV. Gene Cernan was walking on the moon, and José decided, right then and there, that he was going to do the same thing.
Most people would call that a pipe dream. His family lived hand-to-mouth. But his dad, Salvador (played by Julio César Cedillo in the film), didn't shut him down. Instead, he gave him a "recipe" for success:
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- Define your goal.
- Know how far you are from it.
- Draw a roadmap.
- If you don't know how to do something, learn.
- Work hard.
It sounds simple. Kinda cliché, right? But the movie shows how those five steps became the literal blueprint for his entire life.
The 11 Rejections That Defined Him
This is the part that usually blows people's minds. NASA rejected José Hernández eleven times. Most of us give up on a New Year's resolution by February, but this guy kept applying year after year for over a decade.
He didn't just resubmit the same application, either. Every time NASA said no, he looked at the people who did get in. He noticed they were pilots, so he got his pilot’s license. He saw they were scuba divers, so he became a certified master diver. He even learned Russian because he figured it would make him more useful on the International Space Station.
By the time he sent his 12th application, he didn't mail it. He drove to the Johnson Space Center and handed it to the selection committee in person. That's the kind of energy the mexican guy goes to space movie captures so well.
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Why A Million Miles Away Hits Differently
There are plenty of space movies out there. Interstellar, Gravity, The Martian—they're great. But A Million Miles Away isn't really a "space" movie in the traditional sense. It’s a family drama that happens to end in orbit.
The film spends a lot of time on his wife, Adela (played by Rosa Salazar). In one of the most honest scenes, José tells her he wants to be an astronaut, and she just... laughs. Not because she’s mean, but because it sounds absurd. But then she becomes his biggest engine. She’s the one who pointed out that he needed to stop being "just as good" as the other applicants and start being better.
Fact vs. Fiction: What the Movie Got Right
Alejandra Márquez Abella, the director, tried to keep things as factual as possible.
- The Teacher: Miss Young was a real person. She actually visited José’s parents and told them that moving their kids from school to school every few months was ruining their potential. That visit is why the family finally settled in Stockton, California.
- The Engineering Career: Before he was an astronaut, José was a high-level engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. He actually co-developed the first full-field digital mammography system for breast cancer detection. The movie brushes over this a bit, but it’s a massive part of his real-world legacy.
- The Tragedy: The film shows the death of his cousin Beto and later the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. These events were pivotal. Kalpana Chawla, one of the astronauts who died on Columbia, was a real friend and mentor to José. Her death almost made him quit, but it ended up fueling his resolve.
Impact of the Mexican Guy Goes to Space Movie
When the movie dropped, it wasn't just another streaming title. It became a cultural touchstone. For a lot of people, seeing a protagonist who looks like them, speaks like them, and comes from a background of manual labor—not elite prep schools—was huge.
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José Hernández eventually made it to space in 2009 on the STS-128 mission. He spent 14 days on the International Space Station. While he was up there, he sent the first-ever Spanish-language tweet from space. He basically said that "Micro G is great."
Actionable Insights from José’s Journey
If you’re feeling stuck or like your goals are a "million miles away," there are a few things you can actually take from this story:
- Audit your rejections: Don't just get mad when you fail. Look at what the winners have that you don't. Then, go get those skills.
- The power of a "recipe": Break your massive, terrifying dream into five manageable steps. If you can't see the finish line, just focus on the next mile of the roadmap.
- Community is fuel: José didn't get to space alone. He had a wife who managed a restaurant to keep them afloat and a father who sacrificed his own dreams of land ownership to keep his kids in school. Identify who in your life is actually in your corner.
You can watch A Million Miles Away on Amazon Prime Video right now. It's about two hours long, and honestly, even if you aren't into NASA or science, the ending where he finally looks down at Earth is worth the watch. It’s a reminder that where you start has zero to do with where you can end up.
To dig deeper into the actual logistics of his flight, check out the NASA archives for mission STS-128. You can also read his autobiography, Reaching for the Stars, which served as the primary source material for the film. It includes a lot of the technical engineering details that the movie had to trim for time.