Q. In Japan, JAXA established a space education training center in 2005. But its activities aren’t yet widely known among educators. Do you have any advice on how they might reach out and get teachers involved?
Education Support by JAXA Space Education Center
Astronaut Naoko Yamazaki aboard the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo on the ISS (courtesy of NASA)
I think that really, they just need to find something that the teachers are interested in and excited about. And then try to build on that. I would think that space education would be quite interesting to teachers, particularly if there are programs that they can bring into their classroom. I would think that would be quite interesting to the students, because kids really love the space program. They like thinking about astronauts, and they like thinking about things being weightless, and experiments in space. So I would think that would be a good way to interest teachers and excite kids. If you can leverage the teachers’ interest, the activities would likely expand into actual classrooms.
Also, in the States, what we’ve found is that the teachers really value the opportunity to talk with a real scientist. They may not have much exposure to real scientists. They might not think of them as real people. And what we found is that they really appreciate the opportunity to talk with scientists, and they feel that they’re being respected as professionals and human beings if they’re brought into the same room with a scientist, if the scientist is excited to talk to the teachers and try to explain what they do to teachers. It really gives them the feeling that they can bring that enthusiasm back to the classroom. In that sense, I think it’s important to get real scientists involved in the teacher training programs. Q. What’s your impression of Japan’s space programs? I have a good impression of Japan’s space programs. I know that Japan has put a lot of effort into it. I know that Japan has been an important partner in the International Space Station, and has been one of the leaders in getting actual experiments and use out of the International Space Station. That I think has in some sense shown us what we should be doing with the space station. So my impression of the Japanese space program and it’s level of interest is actually very good. I think that its emphasis on technology and space science has been impressive.
Q. I think the United States’ space policy is changing under the Obama administration. What’s your perspective on this new change?
International Space Station (courtesy of NASA)
I think the policy proposed by President Obama is still making its way through the U.S. government. It’s still making its way through Congress, so we don’t yet have a national policy or a national program that’s been approved by the Congress and the President. But I actually think that the change is for the better. It contains some things that I thought were very important.
One was that the International Space Station will be extended past 2015. The plan in the United States was to stop the funding in 2015. And that has been changed, and I think everyone agrees that that’s a good idea. That’s undoubtedly going to be part of the new policy, that the International Space Station will be supported through at least 2020 and probably beyond that. And also that more emphasis will be put on using the space station for science and technology development, and for commercial entities. So I think that that’s a very positive outcome.
There’s also much more emphasis on technology development, which had been neglected for a while in the NASA budget. So I also think that’s very positive.
And it appears that we will be changing the focus of the human exploration program. The details haven’t been settled yet, but it appears that rather than having the moon as the sole focus of that, we will have a more flexible approach that will be sending astronauts to asteroids, into orbit around the moon, to the moon, and eventually onto Mars.
I think that’s an exciting development. One part of this that is being emphasized is to have the human exploration program take on more international partners and have more of an international flavor. The previous plans for the United States to go to the moon were very much a United States program, and I think the effort from now on will be to make future programs build on the experience with the International Space Station and make them more international. So I think that all those things are positive, and it just remains to be seen how it all turns out.
Q. With large amounts of public funds being spent on the ISS, people are closely watching what it has to offer, how it could impact our lives. What are your views on the significance of the ISS?
The 23rd Expedition Crew aboard the ISS (courtesy of NASA)
I think that with the focus on ISS utilization - now that most of the modules are finally up in space, and we finally have a crew of six astronauts, and that NASA will now be able to put more funding towards using it - I actually think we’re going to start seeing some of the promise of the space station being fulfilled.
I think there are a lot of different areas of science and technology that are potentially promising. I think material science is one that everyone has been excited about for some time, and being able to get the experiments up in orbit and be able to spend more time with them I think will prove to be valuable. I also think that the growing focus on using the space station as a test bed is going to start to be effective - as a way to test things like rocket engines in the vacuum. You’ve actually got a test platform that is very different from any test platform on the ground. And I think that there’s a growing sense that there may be a use for the ISS in environmental science, earth science, but more with a tendency towards the environmental sciences. I think that there’s an effort to increase its usefulness in that area, too.
So there are actually several different areas where I think we’re right at the beginning of the point where we’re going to start taking advantage of the possibilities - though it certainly has been a long time coming.
Q. What are your goals for the foreseeable future?
© 2007 Rebecca Lawson Photography
What we’ll be focusing on at Sally Ride Science is, for one, we’ll be expanding the EarthKAM program. We’ll also be expanding our teacher training. We’re expanding to more and more school districts within the United States, and that’s a strong focus for us. And we’re focusing on moving our books and activities onto digital platforms.
When we go digital, we can have more global reach. It has to be economically viable, but we think there’s an international market out there to make it possible. We’re thinking about potential collaborations with international partners, so I think it’s good to go global. We’ve actually had inquiries about our materials from abroad, and it would be great to do something with partners in Japan, too. So we’re quite interested in going digital and global. It’s one of the big waves we’re seeing in the educational field. Q. Just one last question. If a boy or girl asked you, why did you want to go to space, what would you say? That was just something that was always deep inside of me. It just seemed like the coolest thing that I could do - to both take advantage of the science that I knew and also have a real adventure and an opportunity to explore. So if kids told me they want to go to space, I would absolutely encourage them to go for it.
