Mike Mongo #IAmAI
BRIGHT Magazine
Published in
6 min readJan 31, 2017

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From the book “The Afronauts” by Cristina de Middel / Institute

“The quality of math and science teachers is the most important single factor influencing whether students will succeed or fail in science, technology, engineering and math. Passionate educators with issue expertise can make all the difference, enabling hands-on learning that truly engages students — including girls and underrepresented minorities — and preparing them to tackle the grand challenges of the 21st century.” - Former President Barack Obama

TThere is a space industry buzz phrase that has been used for nearly three decades that is finally now breaking through to teachers and administrators. That buzz phrase is New Space.

New Space is what we call the next generation of space exploration. Old Space — the Golden Age of space exploration — spans from the Mercury missions to space and the Apollo missions to the moon (1950s-1970s) all the way through the retirement of the Space Shuttle in 2011. New Space will one day include commercial astronaut missions to Mars and the mining of asteroids for precious metals and ore. New Space is the increasingly convenient catch-all term of a prospering private space industry led by the high-profile likes of Elon Musk and SpaceX, Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin, Richard Branson and Virgin Galactic, and Tori Bruno and United Launch Alliance.

New Space is, very simply, where the jobs will be in science, technology, engineering, arts and math, or STEAM.

By 2025, when today’s middle-schoolers are graduating from college, the global New Space industry is expected to have doubled in size. The number of nations with space programs is likewise anticipated to double, from 24 today to an estimated 47.

Which is why we must begin to teach seriously for space in precisely the same way we began to teach seriously for computers in the 1980’s. New Space equals new jobs, new vocations and new opportunities. Just as computer science led to today’s web design and social media jobs, so, too, will New Space lead to as-yet-unimagined jobs and careers.

TTThe excitement of New Space is a good way to jump-start students’ interest in math and science. After all, every teacher knows that as a general rule kids love space. Broadening their idea of space jobs from just one — astronaut — to such seemingly exotic positions as space veterinarian (already an actual job), space firefighter, space RN and even space athlete, is a sure-fire way to ignite students’ enthusiasm.

But we can’t stop there. As educators we must be very conscious to emphasize an especially important idea about New Space, space exploration, space jobs and space in general. That idea is best summed up by legendary teacher-astronaut Christa McAuliffe:

“Space,” she said, “is for everybody.”

Space is for everybody. Taken at face value, the idea seems both obvious and not particularly innovative. That is, until you begin to introduce space exploration to classrooms full of young students.

For instance, if we were to show a classroom the faces of:

  • the first person in space
  • the first American to orbit the planet
  • the first person to step on the moon
  • and all 12 people who have actually walked on the moon

here’s what they would see:

Men. Who are white.

That is, not a single woman, and no people of color.

The thing is, the beginning of the space program is far more diverse than this. Valentina Tereshkova, a Soviet cosmonaut, led the way for women’s inclusion in 1963 (the first American, Sally Ride, didn’t join that group until 1983). Many people know the names Mae Jemison (Space Shuttle Endeavor, ’92) and Guion Bluford (Space Shuttle Challenger, ’83) as the first African-American astronauts to go to space, but before them was Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, the first Latino, first black and first Cuban astronaut, who went to space to visit the Russian Salyut 6 space station in 1980.

And most people are completely unfamiliar with the name Robert H. Lawrence, the first black astronaut, killed while flying an experimental aircraft in 1967.

Why are the names Tereshkova, Ride, Jemison, Bluford, Méndez and Lawrence as important as Gagarin, Glenn, Grissom, Armstrong and Aldrin? Because to see themselves in the future, students must see themselves in the past. And we should not alienate any student who may want to contribute to New Space. As educators, that should be our goal.

III am an astronaut teacher. What I do is encourage American and foreign students to pursue careers in space and astronautics, the science of space travel and exploration. I started to teach about diversity and inclusion in space because I wanted to make make space enticing for all students. Now when I teach, my go-to image of an astronaut is Mae Jemison. The famous photo of her at the International Space Station is winning for many reasons, not the least of which is she is floating. Jemison is also young — an important detail for capturing student’s interest and imagination — African-American and a woman. And, perhaps most importantly, a doctor.

Astronaut Mae Jemison (NASA)

The recent success of Hidden Figures, both as a book and a movie, as well as the revitalized and more thoughtfully inclusive Star Trek and Star Wars franchises, provide good examples from pop culture that teachers can point to and use. And we should. The characters and their accomplishments underscore the importance of diversity and inclusion in science and space jobs.

But the significance of teaching for space and teaching that space is for everybody is larger than an educational trend or even the push for new frontiers.

From our planet’s perspective, New Space can arguably be the most important change of direction for vocational education, because those jobs can help us overcome the global challenges we face. Space innovation has long served to raise standards of living, advance medicine and global health and create a better quality of life for everyone on the planet. And that was without any full-throttle attempt to attract minorities and women to space programs. So by actively promoting a diverse workforce in space science, technology, engineering, arts and math, we will exponentially increase the number of people who put their minds to figuring out pressing problems.

“Spinoffs” are what NASA calls inventions and technology developed for space that have real-world benefits and commercial applications on Earth. To date, the spinoffs from the original U.S. space program have included no less than satellites, cell phones and the internet. But we can also thank space for CT scans, ultrasound scanners, laser surgery, pacemakers and insulin pumps. Even solar panels and regular water filtration systems come from NASA-technology breakthroughs. So imagine the amazing discoveries in our future if we have an inclusive, New Space-educated workforce. Saving the world and making a place for everyone, what a spinoff!

This is not a farfetched idea. Better rocket engines equal cleaner fuels and more efficient propulsion. Better reuse and recycling means cheaper access to valuable resources. Better understanding of radiation translates to better defenses against cancer, heart disease and vision impairment. The list of benefits to pursuing space exploration seems never-ending.

The fact is that future jobs in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics are literally and figuratively in space, either by doing your job in zero gravity or working on space from the ground. That is why educators and teachers must present jobs in space as open to people of all shapes, sizes, backgrounds, cultures, colors, preferences, genders and economic backgrounds, so that we can make use of our planet’s best resource: the awesome power of the fully invested minds of all students.

Space must be for everybody.

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