Meet an astronaut at the Orange County Fair

Check out model aircraft, learn about space and talk to a real astronaut Friday at the Boy Scouts’ booth at the Orange County Fair. NASA payload specialist Gene Trinh, who lives in Culver City, has been a space researcher since 1979 and flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia in 1996.

Trinh’s work includes research in physical acoustics, fluid dynamics and shuttle flight experiments. He’s in good company among the Boy Scouts: More than half the pilots and scientists who have worked as astronauts since 1959 have participated in the Boy Scouts in some way, according to the Orange County Council of Boy Scouts.

— Alicia Robinson