From Earth orbit to the Moon and Mars, explore the world of human spaceflight with NASA each week on the official podcast of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Listen to in-depth conversations with the astronauts, scientists and engineers who make it possible.
On Episode 254, Mike Kincaid reviews the many different ways that students and teachers can get involved with NASA throughout the school year and ahead of Artemis I. This episode was recorded on August 3, 2022.
Transcript
Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast! Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 254, “Back to School.” I’m Gary Jordan and I’ll be your host today. On this podcast we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, and astronauts and leaders all to let you know what’s going on in the world of human spaceflight. Students, teachers, and parents, this episode is for you. NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, or science, technology, engineering, and math engagement, leads an agency-wide back-to-school campaign every year to get young explorers excited about starting the new school year. Within the campaign there are tons of resources and opportunities for students of all ages. Just last year alone, NASA reached over 39 million with their back-to-school efforts. Joining us today to talk more about student opportunities we have the agency’s associate administrator of NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement, Mike Kincaid. Mike oversees strategic direction and leadership for the office, which attracts and supports the involvement of students in the realization of NASA’s unique missions, engaging America’s educators, students, and institutions in these unique missions, ultimately contributing to NASA’s mission success as well as the nation’s overall STEM education ecosystem. Mike has served NASA for 35 years now. He first joined NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas as an intern in 1987, and has led Johnson Space Center organizations in various capacities, including director of education, deputy director of human resources, and deputy chief financial officer. Prior to taking his current position, Kincaid was the director of external relations at JSC — my former boss. On this episode we’ll be learning more about the opportunities across the whole agency that are open to students throughout the school year. In particular, with Artemis I around the corner, we’ll dive into Artemis mission-based student challenges happening across the country and how students can get involved with America’s space agency. Hope you enjoy.
[Music]
Host: Mike Kincaid, thanks so much for coming on Houston We Have a Podcast today.
Mike Kincaid: Oh, it’s my, I’m so excited to be here today. This is great.
Host: [Laughter] It’s so good to reconnect with you, you, you know, you were at the Johnson Space Center for quite some time. You were here when I started my career. And so, just wanted to check in, how have things been going for you as the associate administrator?
Mike Kincaid: You know, overall, Gary, things are going great. I’ve been waiting for 254 weeks for this invite, but I’m fine. No, seriously, I, I, my time at JSC was, you know, in fact this, this month is my 35th anniversary.
Host: Wow.
Mike Kincaid: And it’s just been a great experience, but I, I love being at headquarters and, I love helping make a difference for students across the country.
Host: I wanted to start off by exploring that a little bit, Mike, is, that, that sort of passion, you’ve spent with NASA for a very long time. And like we mentioned, you started, for, for a while there you were here at Johnson Space Center as, as, as my boss, really, but you started as a student and that, that passion to reach out to students seemed to, seemed to never go away. I know you started, I think, in, in business, but I want to know sort of where your inspiration was for, for pursuing business school and then just sort of what you, let you get into NASA and then ultimately, fall in love with it.
Mike Kincaid: Yeah, no, thanks Gary, thanks for the opportunity to talk about it. So, yeah, literally, I was thinking about this in an intern briefing we had last week. Thirty-five years ago, this month, I started, showed up at Johnson Space Center as an intern in human resources. And while I always liked NASA, I had not been one of those kids who said, “I’m going to work for NASA when I grow up.” Actually they showed up in my career fair office at Texas A&M and, I came and interviewed and I’m like, this would be a great assignment. And, and if I’m totally candid, I thought I’d just come for three semesters as an intern, and then I would go someplace else because I just couldn’t see myself working for the federal government for 30 years. But now as I look back on it, I’ve loved it. I’ve had a chance to do so many different things, interact with students. You know, I, I managed our intern program at Johnson Space Center for five or six years in the ’90s, I, I led our education program, and it’s really been, NASA has such an interesting way of connecting with students and teachers at all levels that it’s really been fun. And, and I also say, my career has not always been education. It’s, I’ve also done stuff in education and communications and human resources and the CFO (Chief Financial Officer) organization as well. So what I’ve appreciated about NASA is the, the variety of tasks you can get involved with over a career.
Host: Yeah. You know, I’ve definitely found that sort of, level of passion myself. I, I connect with you very, very easily, Mike, because I, that’s the same way I came to NASA was, I wasn’t necessarily looking for it, but they had a really, they had a cool booth when I, at my, at the career for, at Penn State and I decided to go for it, but, but same deal, I fell in love with it. I think the, I think what’s, what stood out to me though, is for me, I I’ve, I’ve danced a little bit with internal and external communications, at least in my career; what I find interesting about yours is, you know, it sounds like, it sounds like it wasn’t necessarily that you wanted to, you know, have, be in the federal government for as long as you did, but what’s interesting about your career is just the breadth that you’ve been able to explore. Like you said, you, you were in communications, you were in human resources, I think you did a while with the chief financial officer. You’ve done, and of course, you know, OSTEM. Just, you, you’ve had a lot of different experiences and, and a lot of getting to explore some unique and very broad skillset. Perhaps, I mean, I wonder, it seems to me, that’s sort of why you stuck around is, is it wasn’t…
Mike Kincaid: That’s right.
Host:…it wasn’t necessarily the same. You, sounds like you, you were always sort of learning something new and doing something different.
Mike Kincaid: That, you know, Gary, you really pulling something important. I, I, I can think of two good friends of mine that start, we all started off in human resources about the same time and they’re still doing human resources 30 years later. And they love that. And, and the opportunity for them to grow deeper and move around within human resources, NASA provided the opportunity. But I, I’ve always been kind of a Jack of all trades. You know, I wanted to check out different things and see how we could make things run more smoothly, which is how I ended up in running internships or in, in CFO’s organization or in communications and external relations. And what I really appreciate about NASA is there’s room for both. There’s not a, well, you have to move around, or you can’t move around. It’s really, there’s some opportunities in both ways. And I think as people are listening today, whether you’re with NASA or one of our contractors, it’s a very, the, the ecosystem, the space ecosystem is so much more broad today than it was when I started 35 years ago. You know, back then it was, you worked for the government, or you worked for one of the big contractors, and now, there’s so many startups, it’s, it’s, it’s a different world, and, and in a great way, you know, one I’m proud of being part of. I, I do say, I’m going to go back, Gary: I remember when you started off as an intern and we’re like, gosh, this guy’s really sharp; I hope we can figure out how, how to keep him. He’s coming all the way down from Pennsylvania. He’s got to live through a Houston summer. We hope he won’t disappear and go back to private industry. So I’m, I’m, I’m grateful that what, almost ten years later, you’re still, you’re still with us.
Host: It is, this, this, this month is my 10-year anniversary. I, I walked in the doors ten years ago; 2012 was my first internship and, no, whatever you did, Mike, it worked, you sold me. And it’s, it’s a, it’s, it’s, it’s a little bit of that diverse experience like you’re saying, right? Getting to try a little bit of new, this, the job is not stale. There’s always something new to learn. I, I, I seriously learn something new every day. And I think that’s, that’s something that I think is something that when it comes to careers and when it comes to, especially some of these things that you’re doing with, with STEM engagement, that seems to be a theme, right, is this, this constant pursuit of, of learning and knowledge and, and trying something new and maybe, maybe even getting out of your comfort zone. I think, I think, you know, not only is it true as exploring a career here, but I, I expect it to be something very similar in some of these initiatives that we’re going to be talking about here today is, is, is, is pushing those limits and really introducing folks to, hey, it’s, it’s OK to try new things and, and, and, you know, be bad at something because you’re eventually going to learn how to be good at that, you know.
Mike Kincaid: I, I totally agree, Gary. Those, those are, those are life skills that all of us have to keep working on. What I think is unique, what’s so cool about NASA and what’s kept me so engaged all these years, is that we do all those things you just said, but we do it as part of a NASA mission. And really, if you look at the Office of STEM Engagement, our goal is how do we get students and educators better connected to NASA’s mission? So, so it’s not, hey, we do internships for internships’ sake, we do internships because we want students to be connected to NASA’s mission. And we know that NASA’s mission’s going to be a stronger one if we get diverse viewpoints and diverse perspectives, you know, people who are in college, people are just out of college, people who have been with us for ten or 35 years, depending on who that might be, that, that range of experience is ultimately what, what will make it possible for us to return to the Moon and go on beyond.
Host: So is that sort of the genesis of your, or the, the root, maybe is the better word, of your, of your passion for why you are where you are right now? Because I know before this job, you were, you were my boss here in external relations, but what made you make that jump over to STEM engagement? What drew you?
Mike Kincaid: It’s a really good question. So, you know, as I look back on it, you know, I’ve kind of always been in and out of STEM engagement. You know, we called it, back in the, when I started off as an intern I worked at human resources, I’d been on the job permanently for about three years and they said, hey, would you run our intern program? So I ran our, the Johnson Space Center intern program — we called it co-ops at the time, that you, you, and I were both in — I did that for six years. And then I went off and did some HR stuff. And then I came back and then I was, what we called at the time, the education director for Johnson Space Center: so how do we work with students and teachers in our, in our nearby area using, you know, Johnson Space Center resources like shuttle and station at the time. I think if you look back at all my jobs, you would see that there’s a connection to wanting to help individuals get connected with what, what NASA’s doing. So whether that was in human resources, helping us find the right people, or whether it was in external relations, talking to members of Congress or the media or students, it’s really how does NASA engage with the outside world. So I, I never got up and said, you know what, my goal is to be the associate administrator for the Office of STEM Engagement. That was never one of my goals. But as I kept going on, I kept thinking, you know what, we, we really do some really cool stuff here, and if we could package this in a way that would resonate for the average American, let alone, and in this, in this particular role, you know, connect with students and educators, that’s a pretty cool thing. That’s something I’ve enjoyed doing.
Host: Well, let’s explore that a little bit more then. This Office of STEM Engagement, right, that seem, we’re getting a sense of what the mission is, what the, what are the goals of the, the entire office itself. And you, being in the perfect position to, to explore this, see, not just that Johnson Space Center aspect, which is, which is really my focus, but, but you’re looking at agency-wide, what is the agency doing, and what is the agency mission when it comes to STEM engagement? So, so what, what is that: what is the purpose and what is the, what is the goals, the core drivers of, of STEM engagement?
Mike Kincaid: So throughout this podcast, I’ll keep talking about stem.nasa.gov. So someone’s listening today and they go to stem.nasa.gov, they’ll find all the different ways that you can interact with us. And there’s lots of different ways. In the Office of STEM Engagement, there, there are things that happen within mission directorates, or, you know, whether it’s Science Mission Directorate or International Space Station, different organizations have different activities, but you’ll be able, you should be able to find all of it at stem.nasa.gov, because it integrates, the goal is integrate everything we have. Now, our office in particular, there’s a couple of things people may have, you know, if they’ve ever seen a downlink from space station to educators, that, that would be us; if they’ve worked with a space grant in their particular state, we, we send a little less than about $800,000 or $900,000 a year to every state to integrate NASA activities within that state. And obviously that’s going to look different in Nebraska or Montana than it will in California or Texas or Florida, where we have bigger populations and NASA presences…
Host: Sure.
Mike Kincaid:…NASA presence. But we do want to work with students in all those different ways. And, and there’s a, it’s hard to describe it quickly because there’s so many different ways that NASA works with university, with universities. We also have a particular emphasis in minority universities. How do we reach minority-serving populations, or minority-serving institutions that are reaching minority populations? And so, that’s a focus area for us as well. We, we, we want people who are coming to work for NASA to reflect our full society in America and not just some segments of it.
Host: So if you pull back and, and think about that, you, you, you’re mentioning like coming to NASA, right, and I’m sure that, that, that is definitely one of the goals here is, is reaching out, getting folks interested in science, technology, engineering, math, and then ultimately, maybe they, maybe they are like you and I where they, they dedicate a career to it. But I think there’s a, there’s maybe a broader aspect to this, right, is, is these are, these are core skills that we want in the American workforce, right, and so, so I, I wanted to see, you know, when, when you look at the overall impact, when you look at, you know, statistics of the landscape of how reach, NASA is reaching out to all of these different, like, as you mentioned, many, many different states and many different ways to many different age groups and students, and, and, and different groups, when you, when you pull back and you look at that, what is truly the, the impact of NASA’s STEM engagement on the American population?
Mike Kincaid: Yeah. We know that, we know that this last year we reached three million students in, in 2021. So the opportunity to really be able to connect with students in so many different ways like you described is, is definitely our goal. I’ll give you a couple examples. So if you go to a website, if you Google “Join Artemis,” that’s one of the ways that students and educators can get involved with Artemis. We also have something called GLOBE (Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment), which our, our colleagues in our science manage, and it’s how do we measure tree canopies and different aspects of the climate. And, and back to your earlier point, if, if, if our office, if our office’s goal is solely to fill jobs at NASA, we would shut down tomorrow because we don’t have a problem filling jobs at NASA. Our goal is to use NASA’s mission to engage students to think about how they could get involved in STEM. I could personally, if a student goes on and they download the GLOBE app and they get interested in climate change and they end up as a climatologist someplace or working for NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) or working for private industry project, you know, projecting weather patterns, that’s a win in my mind. You know, we don’t, you don’t have to end up in space for this to be a success.
Host: Yeah. It’s the idea, yeah, that, that these, these skills are important, right; these skills are very important for, for the reasons that you’re, you’re, you’re pointing out. These are, they’re very highly technical skills. And I mean, so, so for me personally, right, when I’m thinking about some of these opportunities, I honestly get jealous, right, because I, there were, there were a couple, and maybe, maybe it was maybe a lack of awareness, perhaps it was a lack of interest, but I don’t, I don’t think it was because I remember attending like an engineering fair; it just wasn’t, it wasn’t something that was at the forefront in my mind as an opportunity that maybe I should explore, right? The only thing I knew was like, you know, math class, which I struggled with a little bit. But, but the, the idea that maybe there are these other programs, other ways to not only to show students that these are possible careers that they can dedicate their, their lives to, but that it’s fun and that it’s engaging and that they, there’s a breadth of opportunities. That’s, to me, that’s sort of the, the, the, the, the catch here, is there’s, there’s, it, it goes beyond, I think, what maybe folks may think it is.
Mike Kincaid: You know, Gary, you, you, your, your comments there remind me of two things. I’ll tell you two personal stories. So, so I often tell a story to college, high schools, or to high school students. When I went off to, to Texas A&M I started off in engineering because people told me I was good at math and science. And at the end of my freshman year, I switched to business because I thought businesspeople dealt with people and engineers sat behind, they worked in laboratories or sat behind computer terminals. And I tell people I didn’t make a bad choice; I made an ignorant choice. I just didn’t know what engineers did. And I came from a, you know, upper middle-class family that had engineers around me, so I, it’s not as if I couldn’t have known, I just didn’t, I just never understood it. And, and I think as a society we have a hard time seeing that. Tell you more, a more closer to home story: I have a 14-year-old daughter, she is so good at fixing things and she wonders how things work. And when her dad, who does STEM, you know, talks about STEM and students every single day, talks about STEM, she rolls her eyes, and she goes, “Dad, I don’t like math.” And, and we, we have such a hard time, I think, helping kids understand that you don’t have to love going to math and taking math tests to be good at an engineer or scientist. You know, you might just have to be curious about things or wonder how things work. So I think, I think again, where NASA can make a difference is to, to use NASA’s mission to get a kid to think about, well, I don’t like math or I don’t like science, or really what they’re saying is, I don’t like Mrs. So and So or Mr. So and So who teaches me. Sometimes, it’s really more about the experience they’re having and not the content itself. If we can help them see, hey, I may not like that, but I like to figure this thing out, we’re, we’re working on a thing right now with my daughter where we’re launching rockets, you know, where we’re actually building rockets by hand; well, that’s kind of cool, you know, to build a rocket and launch it 300 or 400 feet into the air. That’s kind of interesting. So how do we, how do we help people in this country, students in this country, be able to see what they could do? You know; so important.
Host: Yeah. Let’s, let’s, let’s dive into that a little bit. So, so part of the, what, what we’re going to be talking about in, in this episode is really, and, and apparently you guys do this every year, but it is, it is a push for, to, to reach out to the student population and say, look at all of the different ways that you can engage with science, technology, engineering, math, look at, and, and not just in this way, right, I might not be interested in, in math, but I might, I might want to still explore a STEM career but maybe just, you know, there, there are other opportunities beyond what I think is just a very heavily math-based focus.
Mike Kincaid: That’s right.
Host: Opportunities like that. So, so as part of this campaign, reaching back out to school and sharing the opportunities…
Mike Kincaid: Yep.
Host:…what are some of those things? What are some of those ways that you’re engaging with students of all ages to, to show them just how they can get involved in this?
Mike Kincaid: No, that’s a great question. So yeah, the three words that my daughter hates to hear, “back to school,” but that, we really have spent some time thinking about what, what are the things we can tell educators, what are the things we can tell teachers, and, I’m sorry, to the students and what can we tell educators, and, and what can they specifically do? It’s one thing, and by the way I think all these, it’s good to have social media showing pictures of students that look like our target audiences with, where you see people at NASA who are doing things that they could react to that relate to, you know, seeing, seeing interns doing cool stuff, I think is fun. So there’s lots of different social media aspects, you know, and someone listening to this, if you’re not following us, if you do a search on NASA STEM on Facebook or Twitter, Pinterest — actually Pinterest is one of our biggest audiences because of that’s where so many educators find lesson materials. But we’re also, and then we have a YouTube channel. So there’s lots of places. If you do a NASA STEM, we would love for you to, to follow and see our social media aspects. And by the time this podcast comes out we will be in our third week of our, our efforts to engage students and educators in our back-to-school content. So there are lots of ways. If you’re an educator listening, we have something called NASA EXPRESS. Every Thursday morning we send an email out to about 53,000, mostly educators, across the country saying, hey, here’s things coming up right now. What I, what I see is NASA, stem.nasa.gov is a website that has all of our content, wherever it might be, but it may not be things we’re doing right now, whereas STEM EXPRESS or, NASA EXPRESS comes out on Thursday mornings, that’s really looking at, OK, what can you get involved with right now, what are things that are happening? And as we’re talking, for example, one of things I’ll mention is, by the time this podcast comes out we’ll be restarting our eight-week Artemis learning pathway for educators. So it’s eight weeks of, hey, what is Artemis, what’s a launch rocket, what’s Orion do, why, why would your students be interested in this? It’ll come out every Tuesday morning, it’ll start August 23. If you’re listening, if you know an educator or you are an educator, we would so love to have you join us and, and get this content. You know, Artemis is scheduled about the time this, this podcast comes out and so to be able to engage students in this massive rocket as it, you know, orbits the Moon and comes back, this is, this is amazing stuff. It’s an amazing moment for us to be able to connect with students in a way that is not something you can do every day.
Host: So it sounds like when, when, when you’re talking about connecting, right, I, I’m thinking about the different ways to do that. There seems to be a mix of, maybe reaching out to the teaching community and giving them lesson plan and materials to bring into the classroom; is there also opportunities for, you know, students to travel to different locations and actually get, you know, hands on some, some equipment?
Mike Kincaid: Yeah.
Host: How, how are you, how are you balancing some of these different opportunities?
Mike Kincaid: You know, Gary, that’s a really great observation. You know, we started off talking in this podcast about internships, right?
Host: Right.
Mike Kincaid: So that’s one way, but then we talk about K-12 and evolving students, but you’re right, there’s a whole bunch of things in between, for, at the high school and college level. Again, if you go to stem.nasa.gov, they’ll give you some ability to toggle. You can pick kind of, hey, what are you doing for high school kids? What are you doing for college students? What are you doing for postdocs? Those are all opportunities that people can kind of go search for. I, I, I’m personally very excited about something called the Artemis Student Challenges. These are, these are activities that in some cases we’ve had for 25 years but we’ve been, we’ve been bringing it together under our common brand of Artemis learning cha — Artemis Student Challenges. Where for example, of the Johnson Space Center, and you guys have two that I think are really cool. One is Micro–g NExT, where we ask college students across the country to help us solve NASA problems or challenges. And, and my favorite one is we were trying to figure out how do you cut a zip tie in space? You know, we’ve, back in the early 2000s when we were zipping stuff to, installing equipment onboard the International Space Station they use zip ties to hold things in place. Well, if you and I are on the ground then you want to cut a zip tie it’s no big deal, you just do it. But if you’re in space and you’re wearing a bulky glove and you’re outside, that’s not an easy thing. And when you cut the zip tie, now you have this little projectile moving at 17,000 miles an hour. So you got to really think about this. And so, the ISS came to us and said, hey, we want to get students across the team, across the country to help us design how they would solve this. And we had probably, I think that year we had 20 team, 19 teams, 20 teams, and there were different challenges. There were about half dozen teams that picked this one challenge, and, and the winning team was so fascinating. It’s actually a group of students from a community college there in Texas, on the other side of Houston. And it was two young women who had just graduated high school and they were in their first year of a community college, and there was a, a gentleman who was, I’ll just say later in career where he’s going back to school, he’d been a technician for probably 20, 25 years. And then there were a couple others on the extended members of the team as well. And, and these very diverse group of students came up with a design that beat out all these big-name, four-year universities that I won’t say out loud. And, and we actually, they won their, they’re prototype won, and we flew it onboard the International Space Station, and we cut zip ties in the fall of 2019. So here’s an example where students had a no-kidding, NASA has this problem, help us think through it; work in teams, figure out how to do that. And that’s, that’s just one example. We, we have some examples, rover challenge, where students will build a rover and, and race it. It has to be a, a, a male and a female driver of this bicycle, basically, they have to, bicycle powered, and they have to get around a half-mile course. And they have to think through all the challenges that go along with it. We have another one called Student Launch initiative, where they build these eight-foot rockets and we launch them about 5,000, about a mile, about 5,000 feet in the air, there in Huntsville. So there are these lots of different ways that college students can get involved while, while you and I would love to tell stories about our internships, and I think, you know, I think we had, I think we counted 6,000 interns last year, which included those who worked at NASA centers…
Host: Wow.
Mike Kincaid:…plus, those who were supported by space grants in their particular state. While those 6,000 internships are awesome, there’s so many other ways you can get involved. Whether it’s with us or with a, maybe if you’re on college you can get involved with a Students for the Exploration and Development of Space, or SEDS, or an AIAA (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics) chapter or ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers), there’s a bunch of different organizations out there that, that bring students together to use, that use space and connect them with hands-on activities.
Host: Is it, I’m sort of picking up on a theme here, like you’re mentioning a lot of different things, right, there’s this challenge, there’s this challenge, there’s the opportunity to, to come to NASA, to work on an internship; what I’m, what I’m sort of picking up on is, you know, I’m, I’m going back to this theme of why, why are we doing all of this, why, why are, why are we, why do we have all of these different challenges, right, that, these very unique opportunities and it’s, and I, and what I’m picking up on is there’s a, there’s a healthy mix of, we have challenges, we have problems that we want to solve, and the student community is creative enough, young enough to, to maybe tackle some things that, that we want to tackle and solve different problems, because there’s, there’s a, there’s a healthy mix of that. But it seems like also, the more that you do this, the wider the opportunity becomes. You mentioned 6,000 interns, right? That’s certainly a lot, that’s a, that’s a big number, but that, that means that there’s, you know, there’s plenty of interns that maybe didn’t get the opportunity. And there’s other ones that maybe didn’t hear about the opportunity because they maybe heard about another opportunity so, is it, am I right in reading that this is a, this is a mix of maybe solving challenges, having all of these different opportunities, very unique opportunities, to maybe have finds, folks find their interest, and then the more that you do, the wider the reach becomes, more people get access to it, you can access different age groups, with different talents and different, different ways to communicate. It’s really about widening, widening and broadening the reach as much as possible.
Mike Kincaid: You know, Gary, you’re, you’re exactly right. And I would say that there’s three, I’ll, we’ll call, I’ll call them buckets, but there’re actually three elements of our strategic plan of what we’re trying to do. The first one is engaging students help us solve NASA challenges. And so, that’s, that’s interns, that’s some of these challenges activities; it’s really, hey, here’s a NASA thing, can you come help us? It’s people helping with their senior design project. There’s, those are concrete examples of them making a contribution to this, to the nation’s space program. The, the middle strategy is, how do we use NASA content as an examples for people to learn? So that might be a high school student using some data that we have on the GLOBE app for global warming, right? They might be using some climate measurements. And so, they’re using a NASA set of materials or data to better understand learning concepts. And the third general area is how do you attract students? How do you spark their interest in STEM? And I tend to think about, you know, fourth and fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth graders, because that’s where, that’s where studies tell us so many students make choices away from STEM in that early, late elementary, middle school area. So we spend a lot of time talking about how do you reach them. But you’re exactly right. It’s, it’s not a one size fits all. It really kind of depends on where someone is in that conveyor belt, if you will, of life, you know: are they thinking, are they like my 14-year-old who has to be “interested” in STEM but kind of thinks maybe she could do this, or is it someone who’s already in a, in a degree and is trying to get some experience and help NASA? All those things fit. The other thing you said, which I think is important to, you, you briefly mentioned is, we don’t do this alone, right? We create, we help feed this ecosystem, if you will. But a lot of people help us, not only inside NASA but other agencies: you know, we partner with the Department of Education like this whole back to school campaign that I talked about before, Department of Ed[ucation] is helping us push this content to their network of educators, or NOAA is helping us with some of our climate work. So, so other federal agencies get involved. We also work with external organizations. So it might be the Girl Scouts, they’ve they, they put together a series of STEM badges, and I think there’s, I think if I can remember this correctly there’s 12 of them total and four of them have NASA components. And those four are like 200,000 badges have been completed in the STEM area around the NASA one. It’s 40% of their total. So, so when we can go partner with other organizations to help us reach students and use NASA as kind of a, a backdrop, that’s a win. It doesn’t have to be, while again, I’m going to mention stem.nasa.gov, there’s so many other partners that are helping us. Discovery Education for example: they, their biggest day, their biggest broadcast day was when we landed the rover on Mars. That was their biggest, biggest number of watchers of their Discovery Channel of, of Discovery Education, which is a, a subsidiary or a nonprofit arm of Discovery Channel. So, you know, we really do work with lots of people to, to help make a difference in students of all ages.
Host: It’s amazing, the, the reach. Its, it’s clear to me, you know, why, why sort you’re doing what you’re doing. I want to take some of these core values that, that you’re mentioning and all the different experiences and for a second focus them on this, you know, back to school campaign, and then particularly I do want to explore this, these Artemis challenges, because I thought what you find, what you found, what, what I found unique was you talked about the Artemis challenges being a set of things that have been around for a while. I think you, you mentioned maybe 25 years.
Mike Kincaid: Some of them.
Host: And, and, and putting them, rebranding them into this, these, making them related to Artemis. And I wonder, Artemis is going to be, you know, by, especially by the time this, this episode comes out, we’re, there’s a lot of people that are going to be focusing on, on Artemis; the first, Artemis I launch is going to be around the corner is going to be, I think, very exciting, very engaging. I know we’re seeing it from our comm, the communications arm, all over the place. There’s just so many people that are, that are interested in that. And I think what’s unique about Office of STEM Engagement is you’re talking about programs to help get students involved in, in this massive effort of sustainably returning humans to the Moon and then going on eventually to Mars. So, so taking these core values and thinking about the back-to-school [effort], thinking about the, the Artemis and how students can actually contribute to this fantastic mission, this fantastic endeavor, what are some of the things you guys have planned?
Mike Kincaid: Yeah, so, so we are always, as, as we go into the fall semester we’re always looking for new student teams to be part of the Artemis Student Challenges. And I, I think there’s eight or nine of them are adding an app development challenge that will have middle school and high school options. And again, stem.nasa.gov, will help you find all these because they’re, because they’re, some are, most are college, some have some high school elements to it. You know, but, but what’s common to all of them is, is I’ve had a chance now to visit almost all of them personally — you know, we had to kind of go into hiatus during COVID, we turned these into virtual options…
Host: Yeah.
Mike Kincaid:…and it’s so much better when you have students showing up at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab there in Houston with their contraptions, their inventions that they created to solve a problem for NASA. And the excitement that you hear in the challenges; they talk about, Mike, well, you know, this, this, this pro — they’ll hand me this, this contraption, and you’re trying to manipulate it just like the diver would whose…let back up a second. So the Neutral Buoyancy Lab is a huge pool, 40 feet deep, [two] hundred feet long; huge pool. And so students will design these, these products that our divers will use in the pool to simulate what it might be like for an astronaut to use it, either in space or on the Martian surface someday or on the lunar surface. And so students are showing up and they have these, they have their inventions, and they’re telling me all about it. And, and the learning that comes through it, it’s not just the, are they excited about having a team of five of them — I can remember the four, four students from Iowa State, they were so excited about being in Houston, first time most of them had even been in, in Texas let alone Johnson Space Center. And they’re telling about their project. They, the learning is not just with Artemis, right? The learning is working as a team, having a chance to kind of think through what are they trying to accomplish, having a schedule. Those are all things that all of us live with every day. So the, the Artemis Student Challenges to me are not just a way to make a contribution to NASA, they’re also these great learning opportunities for students of all different kinds of backgrounds to join us and to, to help the, through some of these engineering challenges that, that we face.
Host: When you think about the, perhaps, biases or, or preconceived notions of what, what would interest students in, in these opportunities, and, and who, who you would be reaching out to in order to contribute to NASA, what are some of the surprising things that you find? You mentioned going out in person, and you mentioned, you know, reaching out to diverse people; what, what are some of the surprising things that folks may not realize in terms of who it is really that ultimately is participating in a lot of these efforts?
Mike Kincaid: You know, I think, I think when I see people be impacted is when they see someone like themselves doing something that they thought was unachievable. And, like an example that comes to mind is a young lady, I’ll tell you a story: Jessica Watkins is currently aboard the International Space Station, first African American female to do a long-duration ISS time period. And I, I think I’m, I might have even, you might have even been at, she might have been on your podcast I was listening to recently. So, so to hear, you know, middle school students see something like that go, well, this seems possible, this seems doable; I, I, maybe I could do this; the opportunity to really kind of think through and see themselves in it, that, that to me is the real power, the real magic of this, that happens. And so the more that the agency can find people that can be approachable, and like, you know, when, when we introduce the, the guy who has seven degrees from MIT, that’s kind of hard for most people to relate to. But when we can show people who are average folks, maybe people who went to Penn State and majored in marketing, or people went to Texas A&M and majored in business management. When you can see, well, if those guys can do this, maybe, maybe there’s a place for me. You know, maybe I don’t have to be Sheldon from the “Big Bang Theory.” Maybe, maybe there’s a pretty wide aperture of the kinds of people that work at NASA. And, and, and all of our partners, whether that’s Boeing or SpaceX, or the whole host of different organizations that live in this, this space community.
Host: Yeah. It’s, it’s the, this idea, I, I, I, I understand the, the logic of, of really, what you’re going for is space is more accessible than maybe people think, you know, exactly what you’re saying. Like, you don’t necessarily have to be a super-genius. I mean, we welcome the super-geniuses, obviously, but, but it’s, it’s, it’s more to that, right? There’s, like you said, like, I mean, you in particular, you’ve been all over NASA in areas that people probably don’t even think about. They probably think scientists, engineers, astronauts, you know, they, they, that’s really what they think about when they think about NASA, but there’s a whole finance component, right? There’s a whole human resources. There’s, there’s communications, there’s, there’s education and STEM engagement. There are so many different ways that, that people with talents that, that may not realize that they could work at NASA or contribute to, you know, thing, even, even just the whole community outside of NASA: you mentioned Boeing, some from international, commercial partners, and there’s, there’s so many different ways for folks to get involved. I think maybe opening students’ eyes to that seems to, seems to be probably another driver behind all of these efforts.
Mike Kincaid: You’re exactly right. And, and, again, add to, there’s lots of different roles here, and there’s lots of different partners who are helping us make a difference every day.
Host: So you mentioned going out and seeing some of these, now that, you know, COVID of course, made, turned a lot of these opportunities into virtual, but you mentioned that things are, things are opening back up. And, and of course, you’ve been in the role for a bit. So I, so I expect you’ve seen, you know, some of these opportunities pre-COVID as well, in terms of, you know, how students engage and, and, and, and how they feel when they’re doing these things. That’s, that’s really, I think a unique thing. I remember recently talking to Kris Brown, actually on one of our recent podcasts and, and asking her about some of her experiences, because I think to, to me, one of the things that’s, one of the best parts about being in a position like you and I are in is, is the people component, right? Just, you get to reach out to people and, and help them to maybe, or guide them to, to do something with their lives that maybe they were passionate about but didn’t necessarily know about, or, or teach them something new. And to see that spark of inspiration in their eyes, whenever they’re, you’re, you’re talking to them or maybe when they’re, they’re working on one of these challenges or they, they won a challenge, you know, that, that level of excitement. I wonder, I wonder if you have a moment like that, that maybe sticks out to you that says, all right, this is, this is sort of why I do what I do.
Mike Kincaid: You know, there’s, there’s a lot of those moments. It’s hard to pick one. I kind of talked about one before this, this community college team that came together to create the zip tie cutter. And I followed them, you know, this is, they, they did this back in 2018, and now they’re graduating from college and in different career paths, you know, and it’s fun to see kind of where they end up. One was just graduating actually this month and is looking for full-time employment in Houston. So, so it’s, it’s, it’s interesting to see how that works. I, I also would say that everyone listening to this podcast, if you’re listening to “Houston We Have a Podcast,” you probably have an interest in NASA. And you probably have communities around you who may or may not find it as cool as you do. And I, I would just ask people to think about what is it, their passion area and make, if they just went and talked to one other student about what is it that they thought was cool. For me, it’s my 14-year-old daughter, and I, I have a friend of mine who is an electrical engineer, works in the aerospace business, and we worked out a way where we were building rockets to have our kids, our, our two daughters built these rockets and launch them in the backyard. And, and I couldn’t have done that on my own, right, because even I worked for NASA for 35 years, I’m, I’m not a technical person. I could, I guess I could have followed the instructions, but it was so great partnering with someone who had these, these skills here and together, we could, we could do, make a difference. And so, I would just ask people, if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, hey, I’m interested in STEM, or I know people that are interested in STEM, or I would like to help people get interested in STEM, I hope you’ll use some of the NASA resources because the, the folks in the Office of STEM Engagement, working by ourselves, can’t make a difference. This country has a, has a significant issue, a significant gap in the number of people that we need with STEM degrees, and even those who have a STEM appreciation; it’s, it’s a growing and continual need. But people listening to this podcast might be able to make a difference, you know, in the, in the community around them. I like to tell interns, I would love for you to send pictures of what you’re doing to people on your social media accounts, because NASA ones are cool but they’re not accessible. They’re not, they’re not, sometimes they’re not relatable because it’s not me. But when, hey, this guy that I grew up with, now he’s working at NASA Goddard and he sends this picture of how he’s in a clean room, looking at, you know, the Nancy Grace Roman [Space] Telescope — that’s pretty cool. Like if he can, I knew that guy when he was in the middle school and if he can do that, I could do this. You know? So, so I think people listening to this podcast, that they’ve made it this far into it, they’re really our most important partners in this. How, how, if we’re going to make a difference to students, all of us have to, to go talk to a couple of people and just, and to see what kind of difference we can make.
Host: And in this episode, we’ll, if, if for those that have made it this far, we’ll put a bunch of link, links in the episode webpage too. So if you’re like, hey, I, I’m, I definitely remember stem.nasa.gov, but I don’t remember everything else, so, so we’ll, we’ll put it. So it’s just easy. You can just go to the episode, episode webpage and click.
Mike Kincaid: That’d be great.
Host: For, for you though, I mean, it seems like in your position, I think one’s, there, there’s a level of responsibility and, and maybe just long-term strategic vision of, of where you hope to be, what you hope to do. And you mentioned the, the breadth of programs and, and this, this push for the back-to-school campaign, not just for NASA but you said you’re partnering with different agencies to, to really expand this and, and make this possible. In your leadership position, I wonder, what are your goals for the Office of STEM Engagement? What do you hope, you said you’ve been in NASA for 35 years, that’s a long time, but, and you’ve been in this position for, for quite some time too, but I wonder what you want to leave your position, knowing that you have, have done, have made a contribution, have done something? What are your, what are your long-term strategic goals for, for STEM engagement?
Mike Kincaid: You know, Gary, that’s a really great question. And, and I’d answer it a couple different ways. One is getting the right people in the right jobs. That’s definitely something that we spent some time with. And I think even more important is, how do we use the investments – the Congress gives us, appropriates, our budget last year was $137 million. That’s a lot of money. It goes out to minority universities, it goes out to space grant organizations, it goes out to museums and science centers. It goes out lots of different ways. And while I’m proud about that investments, the more that we can connect that to NASA’s mission the more that NASA’s mission can ooze through those, those grants to states to help, help space grants be more connected to what NASA’s doing, so they can talk to students on Native American reservations and rural areas and urban areas, and, you know, minority-serving places like Puerto Rico. I mean, those are all things that really matter. And so, I, I’m proud of the work the team has done to try to bring these efforts together. You know, like stem.nasa.gov didn’t exist five years ago. We, you had to go, basically, Google was your friend, you had to kind of know what you’re looking for and Google would help you find it. We’re not perfect yet by any stretch of imagination, but virtually everything we’re doing at the agency you can find somehow in stem.nasa.gov. And, and I think, I feel a real passion around: we have these really cool opportunities, how do we get that in front of students? And we do that through NASA EXPRESS, through educators, we do it through partners like Discovery and Girl Scouts, we do it through podcasts like today where interested people can help us tell the story. Those are things that get me really excited is how do we, how do we leverage the cool things NASA’s doing so that students across the country can say, hey, I can do that, I can be part of that, this is something that’s, that’s achievable for me. That, that’s, that’s really exciting to me.
Host: And I hope, I really do hope our listeners sort of walk away with, with that idea that this is something that I, that I can do. I mean, even with just a little bit of an interest, I think it’s at least worth exploring some of, some of the different opportunities to see what, what may most interest you, and what, what’s, you know, where, depending on where you are in the United States, where, where you are able to contribute most and what, what is most fascinating to you. Mike Kincaid, if you had to sort of leave our audience with, with some, some ideas, some nuggets, some, some piece of advice, you know, I think we’ve, we’ve explored a lot today with, with this back-to-school campaign and the different things that, that we are doing, but maybe for those that at this point are still sort of hesitant or, or maybe just a, a piece that maybe we have been missing throughout, throughout our discussions today, what would you leave some of our student, teacher, educator, audience, parents, what would you leave our audience with that you think would, would be a nice way to, to wrap up our, our great conversation here today?
Mike Kincaid: So, you know what’s funny is, is, I don’t know why this came to me, but, you know, we often at Johnson Space Center use that phrase, “failure is not an option.” And actually, I think in some cases that’s true, but in many cases, failure is, is definitely an option. I’d rather try something out and make it better than to not try it. And I have, have, I have a funny story, because I, I’ve known about Houston We Have a Podcast, you started this right after I came to Washington, D.C. in this role. And I remember someone telling me, hey, Gary’s going to start this podcast. And I remember thinking to myself, a podcast? That’s like, didn’t we do this like ten years ago, like who cares about podcasts anymore? And, and I remember thinking, if you’d asked me at the time, I would’ve said this doesn’t really make sense. But, but you were ahead of something. You were already thinking about that people are looking to get their information in new and different ways. And you know, I’m glad that on Episode 254 I finally got my invite to be part of, maybe if I had been an early proponent of, of the podcast…
Host: If you were a believer, Mike, if you were a believer.
Mike Kincaid:…if I was a believer, you would’ve invited me earlier. But, but, but I, I say that kind of jokingly, but kind of not, you know? We got to try new things.
Host: Yeah.
Mike Kincaid: And so, I hope this conversation, you know, at NASA, we are trying new things. We try things that are hard, and people that are listening are part of that process. And if we’re going to engage students, we got to try things that are hard. You know what, sometimes it’s going to work. Sometimes it’s going to be a great idea in 254 episodes here we’re still going strong, you know? And, and sometimes it’s not going to work but it’s going to lead us to the thing that will work. And so, I, I, I think that’d be, that’d be my messages, that failure is an option as long as we’re, we’re continually setting out to do something that’s new and different and connecting with people in a way that makes a difference in their everyday lives. And, and whether it’s through this podcast, whether it’s through STEM activities, whether it’s, you know, watching the first woman or the person of color step out on the lunar surface someday, I mean, those are going to be milestones that, that we will remember for the rest of our lives. And, and I’m proud to be a part of that.
Host: What a perfect way to end the episode. Mike Kincaid, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. It was, it was great to talk to you. Really great to reconnect and, and I, I certainly, I certainly found it inspiring to the, the level of the number, really, of opportunities that are available. And, it was just, it was just great to talk to you. I hope you’re doing well. And it was great to have, great to have you on the podcast. Thanks for joining.
Mike Kincaid: Right back at you, Gary. It’s great talking to you. It’s great to watch your career continue to, to do great things. Thanks, Gary, so much.
Host: Thank you very much.
[Music]
Host: Hey, thanks for sticking around. It was great to reconnect with my former boss Mike Kincaid today. Really great guy, and I hope you enjoyed our conversation about all the unique opportunities we have here at NASA. Of course, there were a lot of resources that were really mentioned throughout the entire episode. I would just encourage you to go to our episode webpage, just look at Houston We Have a Podcast, “Back to School,” Episode 254, and it’ll pop up, and that’s our episode webpage, and we’ll just put the links of all the different places that we’ve mentioned on today’s episode. But if there’s one you can walk away with and you don’t necessarily have to navigate to that page, it’s stem.nasa.gov. You can also listen to many of our other episodes on NASA.gov/podcasts. That’s where we are listed, and you can listen to any of our episodes in no particular order. There are also other podcasts across the whole agency that you can follow and engage with. If you want to talk to us, we’re on social media, on the NASA Johnson Space Center pages of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and you can use the hashtag #AskNASA on any one of those platforms to submit an idea for the show, just make sure to mention it’s for Houston We Have a Podcast. This episode was recorded on August 3, 2022. Thanks to Will Flato, Pat Ryan, Heidi Lavelle, Belinda Pulido, Jaden Jennings, and Kelly Calagna. And of course, thanks again to Mike Kincaid for coming on the show. Give us a rating and feedback on whatever platform you are listening to us on and tell us what you think of our podcast. We’ll be back next week.