Leland Melvin didn't know it at the time, but when he pulled up lame running a go route in his first training camp with the Detroit Lions, it was the best thing that could have happened.
Melvin, an 11th-round pick by the Lions in 1986, pulled his hamstring early in camp that year. He returned a few weeks later, caught three passes for 45 yards in a pair of preseason games and was waived at the end of camp without much opportunity to make the team.
That injury started a two-decade odyssey for Melvin that ended when he flew a pair of missions for NASA on the space shuttle Atlantis, a journey he chronicled in the recently released book "Chasing Space: An Astronaut's Story of Grit, Grace, and Second Chances," and a companion children's edition.