HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Here is an Army experimental test pilot, an aspiring astronaut. He has wanted to be in space since childhood.

His childhood goal was to fly - to experience the weightlessness that came with being in space.

"Going to Space Camp, I realized what was going on," he said. "It was going into space. I still want to do it."

So that is how Maj. David Hnyda, now 35, latched even tighter to his childhood ambition, never letting go of it after first attending Space Camp when he was in the sixth grade.

"I am still pursuing," he said.

Last year, NASA announced it was seeking astronauts. Hnyda applied, and he's scheduled to find out this summer if he made the initial round of cuts.

At Space Camp, he said, he learned how much was required to travel and be in space.

"Absolutely, you would say it impacted my choice in majoring in college," he said. "It confirmed that, yes, I do want to try to be an astronaut. It solidified the dream."

The dream flourished at Space Camp in the late 1980s. Growing up in Lilburn, Ga., east of Atlanta, he learned about Space Camp.

"When I went the first time, I did the whole thing," he said. "I had to work a deal with my parents and grandfather. If I could earn half of the money, they would match that, and they would pay the other half."

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David Hnyda: Attending Space Camp solidified his dream of space flight