SUMMER 2019 | INNOVATION & TECH TODAY 61
A
recurring thought
crosses Leland
Melvin’s mind
sometimes when he
looks up at the night
sky. As he peers into the stars from his Virginia
home, and sees the darkness of space he has
twice visited, he recalls the ‘the sky is the limit’
sentiment of his childhood, and wonders how to
make it equally magical for students.
“Kids might look at the night sky, but then
they look down at their devices and tablets –
and kind of get stuck there,” he says. “I want to
be sure they continue to look up, and get geared
into their environment, their universe. I also
want them to understand we might have to gear
up and look at another body, a planet, an
exoplanet. I want them to have this vision.”
In a sense, Melvin sounds like thousands of
teachers: how do we bring vision into our
students’ education? Unlike those teachers, he is
coming at it as a NASA astronaut, NASA Head
of Education, and, for five years, co-chair of the
White House’s Federal Coordination in Science,
Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics
(S.T.E.M.) Education Task Force. His job? To
come up with a five-year STEM plan for
national education and regularly advise then-
President Obama. The federal guidelines and
standards that inform all STEM teachers today
came from Melvin and his team.
Melvin is also coming at it as the author of two
books (including Chasing Space: An Astronaut’s
Story of Grace, Grit and Second Chances), and
technical advisor on the National Geographic
Channel series MARS, created in 2017 by Apollo
13 director Ron Howard and Brian Grazer. Prior
to that, Melvin and seven other astronauts co-
starred in NatGeo’s One Strange Rock, sharing
experiences of Earth from the rare perspective
of being a space traveler.
Meanwhile, the pieces of humankind’s greatest
exploration are falling into place quickly. In late
November, NASA’s InSight robotic lander
touched down on Mars for the first-ever deep
core and underground exploration of the planet.
Space X, NASA, and soon Virgin Galactic are
launching both satellites and early prototype
machinery for a Mars mission. In the meantime,
kids from coast to coast are engrossed in STEM
curriculum, robotics, and related classes. Throw
in that 2019 is the 50th anniversary of the
Apollo 11 mission that landed Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, and Melvin feels
the time is now to inject vision, creativity, and
purpose into the way we present STEM – with a
serving of astronautics included.
“When I was a kid, growing up in the late 60s
and 70s, going to school was a lot of fun,” he
recalled. “Look at what we aspired to in the
classroom. We were sending astronauts into
Earth orbit and to the moon. Even then, we
were drawing pictures of flying cars and landing
on Mars on our school folders, and the experts
were talking matter-of-fact about Mars being the
natural extension of walking on the moon. The
things everyone is talking about today, we talked
about then. Since we didn’t have devices and
couldn’t go online to Google and look at footage
from our telescopes, or deep space vehicles, we
had to imagine it. Envision it. So my generation
was a generation of dreamers. The difference is,
technology is catching up to us now so we can
focus on truly sending manned missions toMars. I’m confident it can happen in my
lifetime.”
Melvin’s work on MARS, on which he is one of
two astronaut advisors (Dr. Mae Jemison being
the other), cuts to the areas he’s most passionate
about: matching STEM education with real and
imagined space duties, enhancing creativity and
vision by throwing the all important “A” into
STEAM – arts curriculum – and focusing on the
day-to-day of not only fulfilling experiments and
tasks, but also existing as a tiny family or
community. That, Melvin points out, is
particularly critical.
“What we need to understand going into this
is that the first mission or two may be a one-way
trip, with the astronauts colonizing and staying
there,” Melvin says. “We do a lot of things in
MARS, from blending documentary with live-
action, science with drama, but we also look at
the dynamics of the group as they work
together, and get used to their newer, much
more hostile environment. So while Season 1
was about the novelty of being there, Season 2
focuses on the dynamics of the colonists, along
with a major challenge – will it be a private or
public operation to mine the resources from
beneath the surface? Earth challenges will
become Mars challenges at times; we need to
show that. Working together is going to be
critical, but so is living together.”
To that end, Melvin was thrilled to see
Howard and Grazer create and cast a female
commander for the mission (played by Korean-
American actress Jihae). He felt that sent the
proper message not only for the global diversity
it represents, but also empowering girls and
young women to focus more on science, techtech
zone NASAAssociate Administrator for Education and Astronaut Leland Melvin talks with
school children during the “Build the Future” activity where students created
their vision of the future in space with LEGO bricks and elements inside a tent that
was set up on the launch viewing area at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape
Canaveral, Fla. on Monday, Nov. 1, 2010. NASA and The LEGO Group signed a
Space Act Agreement to spark children's interest in science, technology,
engineering, and math (STEM). Photo NASA/Bill Ingalls