NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

By: Jim Hodges

The key is serendipity.

It’s how Alexander Fleming, while studying bacteria that causes food poisoning, returned from a vacation to find a blue-green mold that arrested the bacteria.

Serendipity – the willingness to accept that you can find something while looking for something else -- led Fleming to discover penicillin.

Being open-minded is the way to get the most out of Friday’s TEDx-NASA conference at Christopher Newport University’s Ferguson Center.

It’s called “Space to Create,” a play on words.

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“For NASA, we know what space means, right?” said Steve Craft, deputy director of the Strategic Relationships Office who has shepherded TEDx-NASA from its infancy. “Well, Space to Create can be that, but it also can be a space in your living room or space in the park. Space can mean a lot of different things to different people.”

If that seems ambiguous, think about it. And if you’re coming to the Ferguson Center looking for Power Point presentations outlining technical issues, forget about it.

“One of the things that people have had trouble understanding is that, even though NASA is co-sponsoring this (with the National Institute of Aerospace), it’s not going to be a typical NASA conference,” said Craft. "Not all of the talks are technical talks about NASA stuff."

Instead, creative speakers will come together, with ideas that are vastly different from each other, in an environment designed to inspire audience to innovative thought. Serendipity can come when a speaker who has an idea for purifying drinking water in Africa can inspire an engineer to create a new space vehicle.

It’s not that the inventions are alike. It is that one helped create an atmosphere that spurred another to an idea.

That’s why best-selling author and award-winning sports writer Mitch Album will talk of a foundation to repair churches for the homeless. And artist Pat Rawlings will talk about a vision for space exploration. Mike Rayburn will play two songs at once on a guitar.

Two songs? The idea is to challenge the audience – expected to approach 1,700, some from NASA, others from industry and the general public -- to think beyond what they consider to be their limitations.

It’s TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design.

“One of the things we hope to be able to show people is that, if they will be open-minded, that it can really be helpful to listen to people who look at things from a different angle or a different point of view,” Craft said.

In all, there will be 23 or 24 speakers, with none of the speeches lasting longer than 18 minutes and some as short as six. That conciseness lends itself to organization and hammering home a point. It also lends itself to 45 minutes of audience interaction for every two hours of speeches in what is expected to be a day-long gathering.

NASA Langley’s role in all of this was largely in underwriting transportation for getting the speakers to the Peninsula.

“We are not paying a speaker a dime,” Craft said. “Some of these speakers can command $50,000 for a day, but they have all agreed to do this for nothing.”

Why?

For one thing, the performance will be streamed around the world. For another, each speech will be recorded and will be available on a Web site. Perhaps most important, it’s an opportunity for them to be linked with NASA.

“These speakers know that when they are associated with a brand like NASA and a brand like TED, what they say can reverberate for a long time,” Craft said. “A lot of people can see it.”

Craft muses about what could be.

“All of these people coming up with what could be solutions or potential solutions for problems, and an organization like NASA, which has a reputation for solving problems,” he said. “When you get a combination like that, it can be a powerful thing.”

And at Friday’s end, the hope is that the creative and technical mind can be fused. “I hope, actually I’m pretty confident that people will walk away saying that this is one of the best events they’ve ever been to,” Craft said.

“One of the things that we’ve been criticized about at NASA is how we communicate with the public. Here’s an opportunity for people around the world to see NASA in a different light.”

A creative light.

A serendipitous light.


 
NASA Langley Research Center
Managing Editor: Jim Hodges
Executive Editor and Responsible NASA Official: H. Keith Henry
Editor and Curator: Denise Lineberry