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 256, Janet Petro reflects on her first year as the director of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. This episode was recorded on July 27, 2022.
Transcript
Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast! Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 256, “Leading the Space Coast.” I’m Gary Jordan and I’ll be your host today. On this podcast we bring in the experts, scientists, engineers, astronauts, leaders, all to let you know what’s going on in the world of human spaceflight. On June 20, 2021, Janet Petro was named as the 11th director of the Kennedy Space Center, becoming the first woman to be selected as director in the center’s history. Before NASA, Janet began her career in the U.S. Army after earning a Bachelor of Science in engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York. During her high school years, military academies had just opened for women to enroll. Seizing the opportunity, Janet’s class became the second class of women ever to graduate from West Point. After college, she then went on to receive her master’s in business administration from Boston University Metropolitan College. She has received numerous awards, including the 2022 Dr. Kurt H. Debus award by National Space Club Florida Committee, and her contributions to America’s aerospace efforts, and she also received the 2019 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Sammies Management Excellence medal. She also is the recipient of a President’s Distinguished Executive award and has received the astronaut-selected Silver Snoopy award for outstanding performance for contributing to flight safety and mission success. In 2018 Janet was chosen by Florida Governor Rick Scott to be inducted into Florida’s Women’s Hall of Fame. Janet has created an enormous impact on the space program and community, leading Kennedy’s Space Center into a new era of collaboration and innovation. Serving as a role model for her children and women across the world, her goal is to inspire young girls to follow their dreams and always strive for success, no matter the obstacles that might stand in the way. Today on the podcast Janet will be looking back on her first year as director of the Kennedy Space Center, her years leading up to this first year and the plans she has moving forward for the future of human spaceflight. With that, let’s get right into it. Enjoy.
[Music]
Host: Janet Petro, thank you so much for coming on Houston We Have a Podcast today.
Janet Petro: Hey, thanks, and I’m super-excited to be here, Gary.
Host: Fantastic. You, you’ve been in this role for a year now. Congratulations. How, how are you feeling after your anniversary?
Janet Petro: Yeah, so I will tell you, it has been quite a whirlwind over the past year, you know? Came on during the pandemic, facing the challenge of really leading mostly a remote workforce, and I will tell you one of my biggest fears was I didn’t want to be the first virtual center director in the history of the Kennedy Space Center, really wanted to get that behind us. But also, as you know, it’s also been one of the busiest times in the center’s history. And I’ve talked to lots of people, both from the past and here currently, that just say we have never been as busy as we are at the center with all the activities going on. Everything from, of course, the Artemis activities, the Commercial Crew activities, and then as we look to the future and all the commercial partners operating out of here, so it really, really is a busy time. And I’ll say, I’m just super-proud of the entire team who has been working all of those NASA programs and working with our commercial partners to make it successful. So feeling, feeling pretty good, although it’s been, it has flown by, I will tell you that.
Host: [Laughter] I bet. Awesome. Yeah. Lots going on at the Kennedy Space Center, I want to definitely dive into that and then of course, go into your ambitions for the future. But, but let’s, let’s take it a step back first and learn a little bit about you and a little bit about the Kennedy Space Center as well. I want to start with you though, you, in your early childhood, I wonder if you had some spark of inspiration for, for STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), for engineering, for the army, because I know that’s eventually where you ended up and started pursuing, you know, your, your continued education. So you ultimately ended up at NASA, but, but I wonder if there was some spark early in your childhood that sort of led you down that path?
Janet Petro: Well, Gary, you know, I’ll say, my path to the Kennedy Space Center and NASA was a little bit unusual. But I did grow up here on the Space Coast and my father came down, moved our entire family down to the, to Florida in the early 60s during the early days of the space program. So even as a young child I very vividly remember going to the beach with my brothers and sisters or coming out to the Kennedy Space Center to watch some of the early launches. And my, my father went through the, the Mercury, the, the Gemini, and then on the Apollo program, and then worked on the shuttle program. So I would say that being, space and launches were always a, a part of my life. In fact, one of my most vivid memories is watching the launch of, the first STS (Space Transportation System) roll out of the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) back in 1981 when I was at college, during my spring break. So I would say my spark came initially from my dad; I did not really know what engineering was, but as I was going through high school and the military academies opened up their doors to women, I became interested for a whole host of reasons. And I was accepted, and, and eventually graduated in 1981. And the branch I selected was aviation, and flew helicopters in the, in the Army for about five years before I decided to, to come back to my roots and be an engineer and work with commercial companies in the space, in the space industry. I had a variety of customers, whether it was Department of Defense, we had some NASA customers, we had some commercial customers, before I came to NASA in 2007 as the deputy director at the Kennedy Space Center. So it really was full circle. And as I said, it was a little bit unusual because a lot of, a lot of people at NASA start their career as an intern, and then they stay with the federal agency, NASA, for all of their career. What I like to say, why my path was a little bit different and unique is, along the way, I had many diverse experiences in the military, in commercial companies, both large, both small, supporting a variety of different customers, whether it was NASA itself, whether it was again, the Department of Defense in, in particular, the Air Force, or the commercial industry. And so I had that broad experience that I brought to the table when I came here as the deputy director back in, back in 2007. And then of course as you, as you mentioned, I was deputy and then I became center director last year. So my path was, was a little bit different, a little bit unusual, but I think the breadth and the depth of my diverse experiences is what I was bringing to the table.
Host: Perfect. Yeah, let’s, let’s, let’s dive in and explore that a little bit to figure out exactly, sort of, you know, along that path, along that, that, that a little bit different path, what eventually, you know, led you to where you are. I want to go back to your father for a second. You said you moved down for, into Florida and, and your father, it sounds like he was working for NASA. Did you guys move specifically to work at Kennedy?
Janet Petro: Yeah. So my, my father actually worked for the Chrysler Corporation in Michigan, which is where most of my siblings were born. And in the early 60s of, of, of course as President Kennedy had given that speech about going back to the Moon and the, really the space industry was picking up with the test programs, they looked across the industrial base for, like, like things, so an automobile and Chrysler, you know, how do you build a, a console that astronauts could operate. So he came down originally with Chrysler. he eventually worked for Rockwell — Rockwell, and then he ended his career with Lockheed Martin. So he was a contractor supporting the NASA programs during his tenure here.
Host: Did you have anyone in your family that was in the military, or, or was, you know, what really, what I’m getting at is really, what was your drive to, to go into the military?
Janet Petro: Yes, is it’s interesting. I actually did have a brother who also attended West Point, but nobody else in my military, or nobody else in my family had any military background and experience. The, the biggest draw for me, and, and back in those days, I graduated high school back in ’77, you know, college was not what it is today where it was a, a given that everybody who graduated from high school would go on to college. And so, you know, my, my father worked out as a contractor, the Kennedy Space Center, my mom was a, a stay-at-home mom. I had four siblings, so we had four children, or five children. And my mom, you know, took care of us. So there wasn’t a lot of money for us, for them to send their kids to college. So one of the biggest draws for me for to go into the military academy was, you know, may sound kind of odd, but, was like, it was, it was free. They did not have to put out any money. The other big thing was when I was growing up I played, played a lot of sports; I played softball, I was a captain on my team. And so I, and I was the oldest daughter — I was the middle child, I had two older brothers and two younger sisters — but I was always kind of the little leader of my sisters around, and I, I got beat up by my brothers, so I had to learn to fend for myself. So one of the big draws with the military academy was just the leadership that they, that they taught, you know, and I used to, I loved joking with my former boss, Bob Cabana, who graduated from the Naval Academy, that I went to the number one leadership school, which was the Military Academy at West Point. But it was a leadership, it was also, sports, you know, they, they promote a lot of sports, a lot of teamwork. And, in addition to the excellent academic reputation that they had, and of course I had very good grades, studied hard going through, going through high school, I always, I always was a, was a very good student. And so, all of those things, that rounded experience, of, you know, great academics, great sports facilities and, and promotion of sports and, and teamwork and the leadership, that that was kind of, oh, and by the way, then I didn’t have to put out any, or my parents didn’t have to put out any money for it, all of those things are what kind of drew me to the military academy.
Host: Got it. Yeah. Lots of things going for that. And, and, and very interesting. Now, now at the military academy there’s a lot of things that you can pursue, but you chose aviation and you chose helicopters. I wonder why?
Janet Petro: Yeah. So, you know, when, at the time I was going to West Point, it’s a little bit changed now, but everybody graduated with a bachelor in science and engineering. And, but you got to take, there were the core courses that you had to take to achieve that degree, but then you had your optional courses and, and, and though they, you could choose what kind of optional courses, and one of the things that I was interested in was the aerospace. So a lot of, you know, a lot of the fluids, the, the, the, the mechanics courses, they kind of attracted me. And so it turned out several of my professors that taught those courses also happened to be in the Army themselves, be pilots themselves. And they would take us out to do labs out at Fort Stewart up there in New York, and we would actually get to fly in helicopters and do our labs while they were, while they were flying us around. I’m sure it was a great, great thing for them that they got to go fly and bring their classes and get some flight time at the same time that they were teaching the cadets up there. So doing that was very, is what sparked my passion, if you would, if you will, for flying. I was like, boy, OK, if I’m going to go in the Army I want to do something that’s really, that I can be really passionate about…
Host: Yeah.
Janet Petro:…and, and, and super-fun, and that flying is what kind of sparked that in me. And, and fortunately, when I graduated, I was able to pick my, pick my branch and my location, and so, and, and it’s a long story but I became a maintenance test pilot for helicopters, and then was stationed over in Germany. And during that time, it was near the, it was in the middle of the Cold War so that was a whole great experience for me to be in Europe at a time when there was a, a wall that divided the two pieces of Europe. And, yeah, it was, it was really, really a great time. And I will also say that a couple of my professors went on to be astronauts as well, which in my later life and at my career at NASA I’ve been able to reconnect with some of those professors who really inspired me and guided me towards aviation, in, as my military career.
Host: Early on in our chat, Janet, you mentioned, you mentioned that, you know, this is about the time where they started, you know, where women were becoming more popular in some of these classes. And I wonder, you know, when you were in the military academy, what, what, you know, what that was like? Was that, did you encounter obstacles along the, along the way through your studies to pursue some of these things that you became so passionate about, and what did you do to overcome them?
Janet Petro: Yes, I, I don’t know if I mentioned, the military academies were opened up by President [Gerald] Ford in 1975, and so I graduated in high school in ’77 and entered into the second class that had women in its ranks in, at the end of, in 1977. So I graduated in the second class of women. And so, as you can imagine, you know, the first year of women, they were still kind of trying to figure things out; little bit better in the second year, and it’s very different today. The, the Army, the military, is different, way different today than it was back then. But I would say my, as you can imagine, there were some people at the academy at that time, whether it was other cadets or other professors, or, you know, just the administration or those within the military, who really didn’t think that women had a place at the academy. And likewise, there were people who were there to support and mentor and coach and help you to be successful. So my experience was, I got both of that, right? There were, there were, I’ll call them jerks, who you could tell were not there supporting and weren’t wishing you well and success. But there were many others that were helping, helping you and supporting you in ways, in ways that would, it would help you with your success. I would say my classmates, most of all, you know, we became very, very close. So the class of 1981, I think we’re extremely close. The, the women in that class, we are very close. We, we host, women of 1981 reunions, and, and my class itself hosts many, many reunions for which I’ve gone to many of them. And I would say that we, we really gelled. Our, our motto was “Strength as One.” And we gelled together, and I think collectively, made it through. There is a, there is a tremendous dropout rate, I, I’ll say around 40%, and it’s largely due to academics, which is interesting when you think about West Point: you, you might think it might be other things, physical and, and whatnot, but mostly it’s academics. And fortunately for me I had prepared myself in high school, had already taken calculus, so taking some of these courses was, was easy for me, but there were, there were challenges. You know, we faced, you know, again, faced all the things that you might imagine where some people, you know, tried to, you know, make things harder for you, yelled at you more, made you do things that maybe they wouldn’t with other men, but there was, there was a good balance. I look back at as my, at my West Point experience as one of the best, most foundational experience that made me the person I am today. So I learned things like how to be a good team member, how to, how to help out my teammates, how not to think just about myself but about my team. I learned about perseverance and resilience and pushing yourself through things that you did not think you could do, whether it was physically, whether it was, you know, getting yelled at by somebody. I learned about, you know, I talked about leadership; we, we talked a lot about leadership and we, we had a lot of different roles where you were leading your own classmates or leading organizations and entities. And so I look back at that as one of the very best experiences in my life, and one that really set me up for the foundations and the principles upon which I have set my core values and have lived, and tried to live my life. I often, I often talk about in, in many speeches, you know, West Point’s motto of “Duty, Honor, Country,” and I, I really have adopted that motto as my, my own and I, and I talk a lot about that. You know, doing your duty and, and it doesn’t mean just, you know, in the military sense, but you do what you say you’re going to do, and you are the person that people can depend on. And honor, if you are not, if you do not act with integrity and people do not respect your integrity and they cannot trust you, you are not, you are nothing in life. And then finally, country, again, it’s not just about our nation and our country, it’s about realizing that there are things bigger than yourself that you should be striving to do. And so those three words, really, have been part of my core values that I have adopted, and I try to live by.
Host: Interesting. I was going to ask you about, you know, I was going to ask you about advice that you start to give to young women that, that may be going through some of these same struggles and may want to quit because of this adversity or because of these challenges, but I, I think you, you answered a lot of it. I think another key part, and may, maybe it’s within some of these core values that you discussed was, one thing that I pulled out was this idea of, of community and teamwork. It seems like one of the things that you mentioned was, I think, maybe I’m correct, I’m hoping I’m correct at interpreting this, is one of the things that sort of helped you through those times was this sense of camaraderie with some of the people that you ended up being with and graduating with and going through those same struggles with. So this idea of, of team and community, I think is prob — is, can be added on, or maybe part of one of those core values.
Janet Petro: Absolutely. You know, wanting to be, be a part of a team and getting through things together can be one of the most motivational and inspirational things. You don’t want to be the person that your team, that you let down a team; that can, that, that really can help you through some really, really tough times and, and to persevere and know you, you know, you know, how you have others you can lean on, and they know that they can lean on you. And when you get to that place with a team, with a group of people, it’s a, you are way more powerful than yourself as an individual. You asked me about other advice I would give girls or young women: the, the one thing I, I do tell them is have confidence in yourself. I think when I look back over my life, if the one thing I could change, or I could, that I’ve learned is I, I, would’ve had way more confidence in myself at a much younger age. You know you always, women tend to think that they’re not worthy, that they’re not good enough, that they’re not smart enough, that they’re, you know, they can’t do things and that everybody around them is way smarter than them. And I, and I, and I like to tell them, no they’re not. You are, you are as good as them, and you need to think that way and be more confident and, in yourself. And, and I often say even if you don’t think you are, get your head, you know, talk to yourself and get your head into that mindset that when you walk in that room you have a place at the table that’s yours and you own that place and you own that room as much as anybody else in that room. You have a right to be there and be confident in yourself, but it is, it is a mental thing, I would say, much more than, much more than you think. It’s your, your, your mental mindset of how you go into a room and how you talk to people in, in, in, in the way that you talk to them. And so that, that I try to get young women to think that way. And it’s hard to do, but it’s the one thing I wish I had confidence earlier on than I did.
Host:Yeah. I, I love, I love this, this, this advice. I do want to revisit a lot of these, these key elements as you go through your career, and some of these, you know, that, that I think may, may add to what, what it, you know, your journey to, to get you to where you are today. I want to continue with that journey though, because we, we, we’re talking about the academy; walk me through some, what you were doing when you started flying helicopters and then your transition to after, after the military.
Janet Petro: So I decided to leave the military, flew five years, as I mentioned, I was in Germany and then I went back to the States. And I actually, had my, my first, my, my only son, I should say, had my son, and I decided that I wanted to, not, I didn’t grow up in a military family and I wasn’t sure I really wanted to follow the, or have my life’s journey being moving every couple years, and, and, and also, the, there were not very many positions open to women, for example, in combat, in combat units. Now that all changed in the 90s, and, and today I think almost all positions are opened up. But at that time all these things kind of factored in — family, career, etc. — so I decided to leave the military. And then I got my first job — well, actually second job; my first job I was a GS (General Schedule)-12 mechanical engineer in Huntsville, Alabama for the Strategic Defense Command. But then McDonnell Douglas came calling, recruiting people to come back down to the Space Coast and to do some payload processing out at the space center. And so that was very attractive to me. And so I joined up as an engineer for McDonnell Douglas and, and stayed with them, advanced through various positions: mechanical engineer, what we called a payload manager where you led a team of engineers to process a large payload, to program manager. I, I’ve, I stayed with McDonnell Douglas and I, I joined a couple other companies, including a small business, and then SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation, Inc), which is a large systems integration company, which is where I was before I joined NASA. But during that time I resided primarily back down here at the Space Coast, where most of my family was located, although I did have a couple jaunts over to the West Coast working for SAIC for a couple years.
Host: I see. When the, the move from Marshall to McDonnell Douglas, was it a combination of the work that was attractive and, and the stuff that, it sounds like you were working on the shuttle through, through McDonnell Douglas, and then, I guess a combination of that, and then returning to the Space Coast.
Janet Petro: Yeah, it was actually, so I was, it, it Marshall happens to be sitting on the Redstone arsenal, so when I left the Army I actually worked for the Strategic Defense Command, which was DOD also, and then…
Host: Oh, right.
Janet Petro:… the, the Space Coast, I came back down to the center. But the, the contract I worked for was not directly for NASA, it was for, it was McDonnell Douglas. McDonnell Douglas did payload processing for the Air Force and they did payload processing for the shuttle. So my focus was mostly on the DOD side, which was super-secret satellites that we did processing for, for the Air Force. But eventually I did, we did process several payloads that eventually ended up on the shuttle. And then I did move over on the other McDonnell Douglas side and I did, I did program management, I did advanced planning, I did bid and proposal, business development activity. So I got a, a pretty broad experience with McDonnell Douglas.
Host: So let’s explore this, this career. You, you mentioned a lot of different places and a lot of different companies that you were working for and, and positions; I wanted to explore this idea of leadership and management within them. I wonder, where you started were you starting more as, you know, as an engineer, maybe working with teams and, and, and that sort of thing, and then, and then tell me about how you started taking on more responsibility and more management roles as you started hopping around.
Janet Petro: OK. Yeah, I started out as a engineer within McDonnell Douglas, again, mechanical side, just processing payloads. And then there was a position opened up which I applied for that you really led a team of engineers. So mechanical, software, electrical, you know, the quality team, all the, the necessary team that needed to process that payload. So I kind of stepped up to that role. But I would say the biggest probably step into management or leadership role was my boss, my big boss at the time, asked, asked me to go over and be a program manager for this, for this contract. And again, it was a classified contract so I can’t really talk much about it, but he asked me to step up and be a program manager, which was, a big step. And I, and I remember saying, are you, are you sure I’m, I’m ready for this? And I was talking with a couple of my mentors at the time and they said, you know, yeah, he, number one, he wouldn’t have asked you if he didn’t think you could do it, and number two, it really, isn’t a question. You, you know, you’re, you, you need to step up, this is your next big step in the career. And so I look back at that moment, and of course I did accept and did, did go over and do that position, but that was probably pivotal in my journey, if you will, my leadership journey, because stepping up to that program management role, now I became responsible for a much larger team of people. And I was responsible for things like, what’s our vision, what’s our strategy, how do we win this next contract? I had to interface much more with the larger, larger company, you know, so, you know, within McDonnell Douglas, you know, you have, you know, all of your enterprises, like your human resources, your, you know, communications, you know, the big guys. I had to interface regularly with the senior leadership team, and so that gave me the visibility and I got to meet a lot of different people, many of which I’m still friends with and they’re big leaders in the industry to, today as well. But that was kind of my first big step into leadership. And I would say I, I learned a heck of a lot along the way. One of the biggest lessons that I recall from that, excuse me, from that program management position, I think I was about a year and a half, two years in, and I asked my boss at the time for some feedback on, on how he thought I was doing. And, and my customer, I had a direct Air Force customer who had really been with this contract for a long time, you know, he was a customer to this contract, and he told me, he said, the biggest difference between you and the guy you replaced is you do something, you take action. You know, the other guy just sort of was in the position and he really didn’t take any action to change things to make them better, either for people or for the contract or for the performance of the organization. And he said, you do stuff, you take action. And so I thought that was a really good lesson for me to learn early on. And, you know, as your first, you know, quote, leadership position in private industry, it can be a little scary to kind of take action and you hope it turns out well. But getting the direct feedback from the customer that doing something is way preferred to just, you know, having, repeating the same thing year after year after year. So, so I thought that was a great feedback on my leadership journey.
Host: So in terms of decision making, when you were approaching, you know, this, this idea of doing something, how did you, how did you have the confidence to know that it was the right thing to do, that, of all the decisions of all the things that you could do that this was the right thing? What gave you the confidence?
Janet Petro: Yeah, so a couple things I did that as I look back turned out, turned out to be brilliant. But one of the, one of the things, when I first took over as a program manager is, I read the contract. I, I think I, I, I told myself every single day you’re going to go in and you’re going to read that contract, so you know it backwards and forwards. You know exactly what it is that it’s expected out of you from the customer, and exactly what’s in that contract. And that gave me sort of a very firm foundation to be confident that what I was doing was actually what was allowed and what was desired and what was in the contract telling me to do this. So, I guess you would call that doing your homework, in some respects. I also talked to a lot of people and got data points from the, you know, the, the team that I was leading at the time: what were they thinking, what is it that they thought should be changed, and, and what, what should be continued, what should be stopped and what should be changed. And I took that feedback. And so I think those two things together gave me the confidence that what I was doing when I was changing something or making a decision, gave me the confidence that it was the right, the right thing to do. The, the other thing, and I just throw this out there is because this is kind of a, a personal, a personal mantra of mine, you know, almost anything, any decision you make very, very, very few in life are irreversible, right? I mean, get down to, to brass tacks, most things that you do are reversible. That is, you can stop; you can change course, you can tweak things, you can change it. Very, very few things are completely irreversible when you make that decision. So that, so, so doing something is better than, than doing nothing, is what I like to say, but also knowing that it isn’t, you know, it isn’t terminal, you know, so to speak, making the decision also, like, I think helped my confidence.
Host: Very interesting. I, it seems like you got the bug though, when you got, you said you, you were ready to take on the challenge, and you didn’t know at first, but you took it on, and it seems like you enjoyed it, right? Am, am I, am I, it seems like I’m, I feel like that’s what I’m interpreting from you is, leadership is something you’re passionate about?
Janet Petro: Absolutely. And I, and I, I would call myself a, a servant leader, an influence leader, although I, you know, started out in the military; you know, just telling people, demanding, you know, yelling at them louder is not what builds a team and not, is, is not what gets things accomplished. I think, having to, you know, serve, you know, serving others, that’s as a leader, I think I’m serving others whether it’s the organization or the people who are in that organization. That’s what you’re there to, to help to do. And that’s why I’m so passionate about leadership and seeing what the team can accomplish when they, when they get together and talk about things, and we develop a vision and we put initiatives or activities or actions in place to drive towards that vision, and seeing the accomplishments of the team that, that to me is leadership. And I am very passionate about that.
Host: Very good. Help me to understand this, these, when you OK, from, from this moment where you took on this first leadership position to what led you from, from that moment to taking on more and more responsibility until you eventually became Kennedy’s deputy director in 2007?
Janet Petro: OK. So let me see. I just say, yeah, that’s, it’s like I have a long, like 40 years ago. When I left McDonnell Douglas I actually was recruited by a small business to be a leader in their organization. And I did that for several years, eventually becoming, like, a vice president. Again, it was a small business; I, I could go on and on, it was a family-owned Small Business [Administration] 8(a) small, small, disadvantaged business, family-run. Fascinating lessons I learned from that experience. And then from there I joined SAIC, worked on, worked with a couple of very difficult customers, and, and I will say, I learned a lot in that, in that journey and in those leadership positions. And I was always, I would say, from, from the moment I left McDonnell Douglas I had, I was holding some leadership position in every single position I took. So in SAIC I worked, worked as, worked on this particular project was a, was a program manager, a division manager for a project I can’t really talk very much about, you know, as well, and, and then, my, one of the, and this is probably another leadership lesson, networking. One of the people that I had worked with early in my McDonnell Douglas days — my path took me to remain in private industry, his path took him to join the ranks of NASA — and then he progressively went up and he became the center director at the Kennedy Space Center, but we kept in touch over the 30-plus years. He went all over. I went all over, and he reached back and he, he asked me to apply for this position for, to be his deputy. The, the timing of it, you know, the shuttle program had been announced to, that it was ending, and so the landscape at KSC was going to dramatically change in the next few years. And, and I, again, didn’t, wasn’t sure whether I should apply for that position, whether that was the right role for me or I was the right person for the job. But he encouraged me to apply and I did and went through the selection and panel process and eventually came on as the deputy director there in 2007.
Host: So, yeah, and that’s, that’s really where I wanted to pick up was, as you mentioned, this was, this is a very dynamic time and, at Kennedy. And I think most visually, I’m sure there’s a lot of changes that happen across the whole center, but 2007, really, you were, like, you mentioned, you were nearing the end of the shuttle program, which was one of the cornerstones of, of launches from the Kennedy Space Center for, what, what, what would be coming up on 30 years. And then you’re transitioning more to, you’re seeing more and more commercial launches over the, the 2010s. And I feel like that changed just in the, that tenure, you know, of like whatever that would be probably, you know, ten, 15 years until you finally got the director position in 2021, Kennedy changed quite a bit. Tell me about some of these, these big changes and, and, and what you did as the deputy director to navigate Kennedy through this time?
Janet Petro: Sure. So, as I said, we joined in 2007, the shuttle program had been announced that it would be ending, and I will tell you at the time the Kennedy Space Center, the, the entire landscape was dominated by the space shuttles, right? So there was, we did have a, a, a program called launch services program that launched our expendable vehicles and, and they really are one of the crown jewels of the agency, but by and large, the landscape at our center was dominated by the Space Shuttle Program. And, and so, everything from our workforce to paying the utility bills was all funded through the Space Shuttle Program. And so, you know, in, in some of my positions in private industry, I’d worked, I mentioned business development, I worked on bid and proposal, and what I enjoyed about that was the ability to see things differently, like being more creative. You’re not just doing, you know, you’re not just processing the next payload, you’re not just processing the next shuttle payload or the next shuttle vehicle for launch, like what, what is going to be in the future. So, as, as we knew the shuttle program was going to be changing and the next program at that time was Constellation, and that was going to be the next launch, big launch vehicle for NASA to bring us back to the Moon at the time. But, but they did not need near the facilities or the assets or the capabilities that it took to support the shuttle program. And so what were we going to do with all of these assets, facilities and capabilities? So one of the things that I, I, I did was when I looked around I saw that people across the center had separate agreements with different commercial entities and, and with the facilities being available and the assets being available no longer needed by the shuttle program, what were we going to do with this? And, and, and kind of simply, you have a, a couple choices, right? You could just let them be and rust and, and, and, and, and rot; we didn’t have the money to maintain them once a, shuttle program was ending. You could demolish them. Or thirdly, we had some enabling legislation in Congress that said we were supposed to enable the commercial industry. So, took a tack and, and I mean, it, it wasn’t, I wouldn’t say it was just me, but there was a couple people across the center that said, and, and our master, we had a master planning group who started asking some questions, started putting together a plan, we had some other folks who, who joined in the, the, the crowd, and we started saying, why can’t we enable the commercial industry more? And instead of having our facilities rust and fall down or demolish them, let’s see if there’s any interest in the commercial industry. So back in 2010 was our first, what we called our notice of availability, where we detailed a list and put it out on the FedBizOps and said, hey, is there anybody in the commercial in industry that would be interested in utilizing any of these assets and facilities? And we got a tremendous response from the commercial aerospace industry. One of the first agreements that we did was, our Orbiter Processing Facility we had three OPFs, we call them, and as the shuttles were dwindling down and we were sending them to the museums and visitors centers, we didn’t need three, and so, we listed that OPF and that was one of our first agreements that we put in place. And today, that is where Boeing’s Starliner is manufactured, all the pieces put on it, integrated, tested, and fueled, and it will be, what, the second provider carrying our astronauts to the International Space Station. So looking back now that was super-brilliant that we did that. The other big example was our launch pad, Launch Complex 39A, which of course was a very historic launch pad, launched Apollo missions, launched many shuttle missions. But we didn’t need two pads in our future, we only needed one. And I will tell you, there was a lot of folks who were like, we should not give away that pad, we should keep it, we might need it 30 years from now. I could, I could tell you stories about perspectives of people who wanted to hold onto everything. And we put that out, we issued a, we had listed that on our notice of availability, we went through an announcement for a proposal and a selection process. And so today you have SpaceX operating off that pad, and of course that’s where our Commercial Crew Program launches our astronauts to, and from the International Space Station, they’ve launched private astronauts missions from there, they’ve done dozens and, they’ve brought cargo to the International Space Station, in addition to the many commercial missions that they support, and, and use that property. So, again, looking back now, I can’t imagine a landscape at the Kennedy Space Center where we don’t have SpaceX operating, launching our crew, Boeing, their Starliner operating out of our, you know, out of our, the old OPF, one of our OPFs. The other two, we ended up doing an agreement with, for the X-37 program, and so, you know, it, it’s been a long story. We started with facilities; we ran out of facilities. Then we started with land, offering up land to commercial entities. And again, if you come to the Kennedy Space Center today, the landscape is tremendously changed from what it was back in my father’s day and from what it was, as you mentioned, back in 2007. It is very robust, it’s vibrant, there’s a, it’s a hub of activity. I would say, one of our biggest problems now is the workforce and people are stealing that highly skilled workforce from each other back and forth, where, you know, back in at the end of the shuttle program, it wasn’t that way. So very, very pleased with how, where we are today at our multi-user space port. We say we’re the premier multi-user space port in the nation, and work very, very closely with our Space Force partners across the river. They’ve got a number of launch pads and a number of different providers operating out of there. And so collectively, we have to work together. So it’s a big, it’s a big change, and it’s happened a lot quicker than we thought it would. We, we, we, we had our vision, we put it in our master plan back in 2010, 2012, I think is when we got it approved by the agency, and here we are a decade later — we thought it would take us 20, 20, 20 years to get to the point where we’re at today, but we achieved it just, and, and, and there, you know, as you know, the commercial industry has just expanded and had just exploded over the last ten years as well. So it was right time, and, and now we have a, a different landscape here.
Host: Yeah. You seem to have a, a lot of pride and I think rightfully so, because the, the anticipation for what the Kennedy Space Center would look like, I feel like, you know, I, I, I would’ve — I, I would expect exactly what you’ve reported. Some folks just kind of wanted to hold on to the past, but the, the idea is that Kennedy needed to change. And, you know, as you look, as you look from your, your tenure as the deputy director from 2007 to 2021, I mean, that’s, to me, it’s just an, an enormous difference in what Kennedy looked like. I mean, all the, it seems like all the facilities changed, you know, there’s just this, this giant commercial landscape. But do you look back on it with a certain level of, you know — I, I feel like, I feel like the answer’s yes here, — but a certain level of pride in what you and, and the, the Kennedy team were able to achieve in such a short period of time?
Janet Petro: Absolutely. And I, and I will say, I, I’ll just add a couple things there. I think allowing people to ask questions and, and, you know, one of the things coming into NASA as a, as an outsider, if you will, I asked a lot of questions about why do we do things this way, why are we, you know, why is our process set up like this, why is our policy set up like that? And having people ask questions, you know, questioning why we are doing certain things really is, really is challenging but I think that causes innovation. So I didn’t mention, you know, I talked facilities and land and, you know, assets, but one of the biggest things we did and that we challenged our team to do is we have got to change our processes, right? If, if, we could have the field and the, and the customers could come, but if we make it so difficult and so bureaucratic for them to operate, they’re not going to continue to operate here. So we challenged the team across the board: how could we make it simpler for our customers, our, those commercial providers that were coming here? So we, we reduced our, we took a hard look at our safety requirements and, what we, as a, NASA as an agency were putting on top of companies that were operating out of here that far exceeded OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and we didn’t need to have all of these, this bureaucracy on top of bureaucracy. So we looked at reducing, reducing as, as much as possible. I talked about the front door: you know, having somebody try to find the right person at Kennedy to talk to about, you know, if you wanted to operate out here, was very difficult to navigate, but having a front door consolidated in a, in a, a, a central office, our center planning and, and development office, and so, we got, you know, we got lawyers, we have technical folks, we have people who are familiar with the customer, we have all of these people who are focused on that commercial provider coming in was, was, I think, again, pivotal to, to making us, as successful as we are today. So it took like a whole team of people, took a whole different way of thinking, it took a whole way of challenging people to be more innovative to achieve this vision of a multi-user space port. And so, yes, I, I am very, very proud of the team that have really made it happen.
Host: Excellent. Excellent. I want to, I want to talk about that next step though. So, so tell me about when the opportunity to become center director started becoming a reality, and your thought process behind thinking, am I ready to be the director of Kennedy?
Janet Petro: So, you know, I had the privilege of working for two center directors as their deputy, Bill Parsons and Bob Cabana. And I got to tell you, so Bob, I think is, was very, very close: I think his record might have been broken by another center director, but he was the longest-serving center director in NASA history, and I think he was here at Kennedy for a little over 12 years. And so for me, you know, I’m, I’m, I was perfectly happy as the deputy. I, I do recognize there’s a big difference between being the deputy and the director itself. But I, I felt very privileged, I had seen this huge change at the Kennedy Space Center. Bob was a great boss, a great, a great mentor. And I think he was looking, he was looking to retire, but, you know, I was kind of thinking I’m not very far behind you in terms of retirement and he, he wanted to, to still be here when we flew Artemis, and maybe the crew on Artemis going back on our journey to the Moon, I think that was kind of his, the thing in his mind that he was still wanting to achieve as one of his accomplishments. But then, you know, he, the administration changed. Bill Nelson became the administrator and Bill tapped Bob on the shoulder and asked him to come up and be the number one civil servant as the associate administrator, and this happened very fast — it was like over a weekend. And, and so, I was acting at the time. And so, I, I, I would say, you know, when you work as a deputy for 12 or something years under, again, a great boss like Bob Cabana, you’re always kind of thinking, I, I was able to experience a whole lot of things, I don’t think there was much new that I could experience. So I think I was prepared because I had been the deputy so long and had seen so much and gone through everything from the, you know, the cancellation of the Constellation program to the, you know, achievement of the multi-user space port to the reorganization to change in administration. So I think I was fairly prepared for it; it just happened so quick. And, and then when I was acting and then as Senator Nelson appointed me as a center director, I think about a month later I, I did feel, I would say, I did feel prepared. And also I knew that we had one of the best leadership teams in the agency here at the Kennedy Space Center. These are people that I knew, I had learned from, I had kind of grown up in my NASA journey with; I understood their issues and their problems and I felt truly, truly supported by them. So I think having that leadership, that excellent leadership team with that excellent support, is really what made the transition for me pretty easy, I would say. And, and I would also say that a year in, it is different when you are the, the person making the, when you’re making the decision it’s different than, than your role as a deputy where you’re really advising someone. I used to, people would come up with me, come up to me many times afterwards and they’d say, so, how do you like it? And I would jokingly say, well, you know, it’s, might even be easier because I’m the one who gets to make the decision, I don’t have to convince somebody else to make the decision. And I say that in, in kind of jest, but, I think I was prepared as I said.
Host: Excellent. Excellent. So, so tell me about that. So, good to know that your feelings going into it were, were, were you felt as prepared as, as you possibly could be; looking back at your first year on what you accomplished, what, what are some of the key things that come to mind after now being there for more than a year?
Janet Petro: So, you know, we, we, we’re an operations center here at the Kennedy Space Center and I look back at all the missions that we continue to accomplish, you know: getting crew to the International Space Station and back safely, very, very proud of that team; the launch of the, our, all of the science missions that we have launched and, and successfully put those in, in orbit, including Mars 2020, very, very proud of that. Where we are, the biggest thing that we have in front of us, Artemis I, and trying to get that vehicle, you know, it all comes together here at the Kennedy Space Center. You know, the Exploration Ground Systems team that we have has to take that Orion space capsule, that SLS core stage, put the boosters mounted on the mobile launcher, put it all together, test it, integrate it, retest it, repair it, and, and it takes a whole team of people to do that. So I think I’m most proud of what our team has accomplished in terms of the mission over the past year. Really looking forward to Artemis I launching in the next month or so. So that, that will be, that will be sort of the capstone. And, and again I would say, we persevered, even though it, we were still in a pandemic and for the most part there was a virtual workforce as well as one that had to come on center and operate. And then, and then of course, supporting all our partners, you know, I, we have 90 partnerships, over 250 agreements, and there’s no shortage of people knocking at our door wanting to, you know, have a part of KSC. So I think, you know, all that continuing on with the excellent leadership team, I think it all, you know, those are the things I’m most proud of.
Host: So looking forward, right, you got, you got your first year under your belt; you said, of course, Artemis I right around the corner; but what, what stands out to me is I don’t, I don’t see any slowdown necessarily of this continued commercialization and the continued efforts of future Artemis missions, right? This Artemis I is just the first, and then you’re going to have, you’re going to have more at the Kennedy Space Center. You have Exploration Ground Systems and the support network there at the facilities at Kennedy in order to support Moon missions. So things are, are moving and, and to me they seem to be moving quickly. In terms of what you hope for in your tenure as director and how you hope to navigate Kennedy through the future with, you know, we’re going to the Moon, continued commercialization, it’s a, it’s a very dynamic and exciting time. What are some of your key goals going into these next couple years?
Janet Petro: So I, we started out by saying how busy; what a whirlwind it’s been. So I don’t see any of that activity decreasing in the next couple years, you know? Absolutely, Artemis I has got to launch and it’s got to be successful. You know, our team will be, will all be biting our nails until it splashes down safely in the Pacific Ocean, you know, some sometime after it launches, so even though it’ll launch we’ll still be worried about it. And then you mentioned Artemis II putting, putting crew on that vehicle after one test flight, you know, we’re going to have to make sure we, we do everything we can to make sure that that crew is safe as it, as they take their journey around the Moon. And then of course, Artemis III is really going to be the big, the big explosion, I think, across the nation when we actually put boots back on the Moon for the first time in 50, 50 years. And that’s, that’s going to take a whole bunch of partners to make that happen. And we’re right dead in the middle of making that happen. So we’ve got to make sure our NASA programs, our NASA, strictly NASA programs, we continue to deliver on all that we, that the agency has entrusted us to do. And not just the human side, we still got our crews going to and from the space station, and we still have our science missions, our really important planetary and Earth science missions to make sure that we are, we are fulfilling what we told the agency we were going to do. All of these take partners and the partnerships I, I continue to see as increasing as we go forward. You know, last year, we supported 31 launches from the Space Coast. This year on the manifest is something like 65 launches. I see within the next couple years we will be well over, over 100 launches and together my team at Kennedy Space Center along with the Space Force support every single launch in some capacity. So when you think about going from — and by the way 31 was the most launches in decades out here at the Space Coast. So when you think about going to that amount of launches, to over a hundred, when you have a highly dependent team, we’ve got to make sure that our workforce, our capacity, our capabilities to provide the, the, the fuel, the, the, the IT resources, all, all of the things that it takes to make a partner and/or NASA program successful, we’ve got to ensure that our capability and capacity is there to support that. And I will tell you Artemis is challenging a bunch of those capabilities. You know, it uses more GN2 than the Saturn did, by far and away, for a much longer period of time, so we’ve got to ensure that all of our systems and subsystems are sized correctly, and that they have enough capabilities such that, you know, when you’re talking hundred or hundreds of launches you’re talking to launch maybe every other day. So you’ve got to make sure that we have the right capabilities in place. So that, that is some of the things that I’m looking forward to and some of the goals as we’re going forward. The, the other thing that, that we see is many of the, many of our customers and stakeholders are starting to move some of their processing and supply chain operations closer to the launch head. So we’re seeing consolidation from several of the companies. A couple of, I’ll mention here, you know, SpaceX consolidating their, their Starship operations so that we’ll be, they’re replicating Boca Chica out at the Roberts Road facility, and they’re building a tower at 39A where they hope to launch their Starships from, but that consolidating of the operations it’s just much more efficient for them to be able to launch. Both, Blue Origin’s doing the same thing. They, you know, they, if you’ve been to Kennedy, they have huge facilities all over and they’re consolidating their operations here in Florida. Artemis itself: the SLS team has determined that it, it is far more efficient to process some of their, doing some of their engine work here closer to the launch head, some of their, some of their upper stage work, it’s, it’s easier to have done here at our Kennedy Space Center facility than it is to do it elsewhere and then drag it halfway across a country. So I see that consolidation of operations, I see that continuing in the future so much so, you know, you know, we’re trying to up, our people are asking us for, you know, all kinds of things, ranging from office space to more payload processing facilities to more capability in our labs to support their operations that we have out here. So I see the nexus of launch operations just continuing, and we as a center have to ensure that our workforce and our capabilities match, match that. So we don’t want to be the one that ever disappoints or is a reason somebody can’t launch.
Host: Excellent. I, I, Janet I was so happy to talk to you and, and, and of course, very recently, Vanessa Wyche. And I think the theme at NASA is that it’s just, we’re just continuing to move fast, we’re continuing to grow, there’s a lot of exciting things in our future. And to hear that across multiple centers that we’re, we’re trying to build up to support and anticipate something that’s so, so big in our future, I think to me is, is probably one of the most exciting things. So Janet Petro, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you and, and learn about yourself and, and about leadership and what it took to get you to where you are. Congratulations on your first year and all the best of luck in the future.
Janet Petro: Thank you, Gary. And I’ll say I think I have the best job in the world, and I’m at the most vibrant and robust and the best time in history to be right here at the Kennedy Space Center. Thank you for your questions and enjoyed talking with you as well.
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Host: Hey, thanks for sticking around. It was an absolute pleasure to get to talk to Janet Petro today and learn everything about what got her to where she is as the center director of the Kennedy Space Center, lots of changes down there and a lot to look forward into the future. It’s a very, very dynamic time. You can go to NASA.gov/Kennedy to learned about everything that’s going on down in Florida. We’re one of many NASA podcasts across the agency. You can check us out at NASA.gov/podcasts, as well as the other podcasts. We have all of our episodes listed at that website, and you can listen to any of them in no particular order there. You can talk to us on social media as well. We are on the NASA Johnson Space Center pages of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Just use the hashtag #AskNASA on your favorite platform to submit an idea for the show or maybe ask a question, make sure to mention it’s for us at Houston We Have a Podcast. This episode was recorded on July 27, 2022. Thanks to Will Flato, Pat Ryan, Heidi Lavelle, Belinda Pulido, and Jaden Jennings. And of course, thanks again to Janet Petro for taking the time to come 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.