“Houston We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, the home of human spaceflight, stationed in Houston, Texas. We bring space right to you! On this podcast, you’ll learn from some of the brightest minds of America’s space agency as they discuss topics in engineering, science, technology and more. You’ll hear firsthand from astronauts what it’s like to launch atop a rocket, live in space and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. And you’ll listen in to the more human side of space as our guests tell stories of behind-the-scenes moments never heard before.
In Episode 85, prominent local business leaders Cindy DeWease, William Harris, and Bob Mitchell discuss how the presence of the Johnson Space Center in Houston impacts the community and vice versa. This podcast was recorded March 13, 2019.
If you’d like to learn more about NASA in the Houston area check out these websites: clearlakearea.com, spacecenter.org, and bayareahouston.com.
Transcript
Pat Ryan (Host): Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 85, Space City. I’m Pat Ryan. On this podcast, we talk with scientists, engineers, astronauts, lots of other folks about their part in America’s space exploration program. Today we’re focusing on how the presence of one NASA field center here in Houston impacts the community in which it resides and vice-versa. When President Kennedy set his moon landing goal back in 1961, NASA decided that the group that was leading human space flight efforts needed its own location. The requirements were that it be at least 1000 acres, in a moderate climate with established electric and water utilities, close to commercial jet service and to water transport that could accommodate large barges, that it have an established industrial complex with available labor, be close to institutes of higher education, and have a culturally attractive community.
The site that ultimately was selected was 25 miles southeast of downtown Houston, which in the 1960 Census had a population of 938,000 people, just a little behind Baltimore and about 60,000 ahead of Cleveland. The site actually wasn’t even inside the Houston city limits. A map from 1961 shows that the only things interesting enough in the immediate area to be marked were a county park and the Houston Girl Scout Camp, which was located pretty much where I’m sitting today. It was 1000 acres of land that had been donated by the Humble Oil Company to Rice University which the school was leasing out to graze cattle and which it was willing to make available to the government to bring what was then known as the Manned Spacecraft Center to Houston. The people started working in leased office and laboratory space all over town while the buildings were built. The new center officially opened in September 1963, 18 months before the first manned flight of the Gemini program.
Things around here have changed a lot since then. Joining me to talk about the relationship between NASA and the local community in Houston are Cindy DeWease, the President and CEO of the Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce; William Harris, President and CEO of Space Center Houston; and Bob Mitchell, President of the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership. So here we go.
[ Music ]
Host: Let me start by asking each one of you to give me an elevator pitch about what your organization is and the role in this community. Alphabetically, let’s start with Cindy DeWease.
Cindy DeWease: Okay. Well, I am the president and CEO of the Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce and we started in 1962 with the Seabrook business community and the Kemah business community wanting to start a business organization, membership organization because the government was coming. Manned Spaceflight Center was being built and they felt like they needed to get their act together. And so the chamber of commerce started in those communities. Two years later, League City joined — The business community of League City joined that effort and they became the Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce based on the name of the lake. And then as the community grew and more cities formed that went around the lake and we now represent nine different cities in portions of two counties and we have about 900 members. And as I said, we are a business organization. Our focus is on economic development and advocacy and with that, though, networking has formed because people want to do business with people they know, like and trust. And so joining the chamber of commerce having a common goal with the other members helps you get to know folks and build your business network. So in a nutshell, that’s what the chamber is all about.
Host: Terrific. William Harris, Space Center Houston is what?
William Harris: Well, Space Center Houston is a dynamic learning destination. We are a science center that focuses on space exploration specifically interpreting human space exploration and we’re also the official visitor’s center for NASA Johnson Space Center. So we came about, about 26 or so years ago as the outcome of the various NASA research centers talking about how to better manage visitors because it used to be you could just walk on to the facility at NASA Johnson Space Center, go into any kind of laboratory or area but we now live in a post-9/11 world where you have to manage visitors who come into your facilities, particularly a secure federal facility. And so we have grown to be the top destination in Houston for out of town visitors welcoming over 1.1 million visitors a year and we’re continuing to grow. We’ve recently gone through an extensive strategic planning process to really look at how do we manage that growth because we’re kind of busting at the seams of the number of people coming through and in part I think it’s a reflection of the public’s renewed interest in space exploration and excitement about what’s going on.
We also offer very robust education programming. That’s a major area of growth and service to the community. We now welcome over 250,000 youth and educators on field trips every year and that number is continuing to expand. We offer classes for people of all ages. One of our best known one is called Space Center University which is a one-week deep engineering emersion for visitors ages 11 through college. And so based on your academic level, you have an incredible experience in the course of a week to understand what goes into working in the space program.
Host: I did not know that Space Center Houston was the top visitor destination of the whole area.
William Harris: Yes. Yeah, we receive more out of town visitors than any other destination in the Houston region.
Host: Historical note. Before there was Space Center Houston, the visitor’s center was right here in this room where we are sitting today. This used to be where space capsules were on display and where I came when I was nine.
Bob Mitchell: Interesting.
Host: Bob Mitchell, the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership.
Bob Mitchell: Yeah. Thank you. The Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership is a 501(c)(6) nonprofit organization. We just started our 43rd year. We’re a completely member driven organization. We have about 270 members. Thirteen cities fund us, two counties, Harris and Galveston County, Port of Houston, Houston Airport system. We have 43 aerospace companies that are members of the organization, about 22 financial institutions, about 16 healthcare institutions, six specialty chemical companies. We have some brokers, some developers. I tell everybody, you got to have a few lawyers. Very little retail. We have some retail like Minuteman Press and My Flooring America who have been members since the beginning of the organization. What we do is we recruit companies to the region. It may be from North Texas, South Texas or it may be from Alaska, it may be anywhere. We recruit companies here. We do a lot of retention work. Retention is defined about a lot of the work that I do for the Johnson Space Center is I tell people I can say things and ask for things that they can’t ask for themselves.
So I do a lot of retention work. And then the other thing is expansion projects. We recently worked expansion projects. Conoco was a $500 million expansion project. LyondellBasell was a $1.2 billion expansion project. What does that mean? These companies are global. They can do work anywhere in the world. They can expand their operations anywhere. They’re global companies.
Host: They need a reason to do it here.
Bob Mitchell: Absolutely. So what we do is we give them a reason. What we do is we put financial packages together based on incentives maybe from the city, from the county, from the state, workforce training dollars, pull all of that together, abatements and say here, this is, we’ll give you this if you do that $500 million expansion project here.
Host: Tell me — Narrow it down for me just a little and tell me how you do that work that is directly with NASA and the Johnson Space Center on a regular basis.
Bob Mitchell: Well, once a month, I meet with the center director and have been meeting with the center director since Beak Howell and we go over issues that they have and I try to find a way to help them out. That’s basically what it is and of course I work very closely with Debbie Conder and Arturo Sanchez, a number of people within NASA.
Host: Yeah. And those are the people who lead the external relations office at JSC today. Can you give me an example or two of what sort of things does the NASA Johnson Space Center look to you to assist them with?
Bob Mitchell: To help the federal government to make sure that they’re fully funded in their budgets. I work on the budgets quite often and again, you know, as a NASA contractor or a NASA employee, you can’t ask for money but that doesn’t mean I can’t ask for money. So I’m that mechanism that helps them, you know, to receive the funding that they need in the right programs.
Host: Cindy, in your case, how does the chamber of commerce work with NASA and JSC?
Cindy DeWease: Well, we also have Debbie Conder on our Board or she reports to our Board once a month, so she brings us news from NASA, what’s going on at JSC specifically at JSC and so we keep abreast of what’s going on in that area but we also, I go to annually on a trip that BAHEP actually started and organized as citizens for space exploration and that is a trip to Washington, DC, where we take about 100 folks and or BAHEP organizes it.
Host: And BAHEP is Bob Mitchell’s organization.
Cindy DeWease: Bob Mitchell’s organization, and I’m fortunate to be involved in that and asked to participate in that and that is just going around and talking to our congressmen and our senators about the importance of space exploration, specifically human space exploration and how that, it drives, is an economic driver for these communities and for the entire US. And so it’s important to our economy but it’s important to the citizens of our country as well.
Bob Mitchell: Can I comment on that one particular trip?
Host: Sure.
Bob Mitchell: That one particular trip we started 24 years ago and we started because the International Space Station passed by one vote. At that time, we took six travelers from Houston and visited seven offices in Washington, DC. Last year, we took — Again, that started in Houston. Last year alone we took 104 travelers, visited 404 offices. These were actually scheduled sit down meetings. They’re not walk in and hand them a piece of paper. We schedule these meetings prior to getting there, 404. We visited 81% of the House, 79% of the Senate to talk about the importance of NASA and innovation technology that the American people get from it. And we don’t talk specifically about JSC. We talk about NASA and the importance of NASA to America.
Host: It does — Is human space flight a hard sell on Capitol Hill?
Bob Mitchell: Absolutely not. I will say 12 years ago it was a bit of a hard sell. We were able to meet with about 70 or 80 but as we’ve grown this program, we’ve met with 404 last year. It’s truly, truly one of the very few issues in Washington that is bipartisan. We receive support from the Democratic side just as well as we receive it from the Republican side. There is no division. They’re very supportive.
Cindy DeWease: And welcomed. The folks come in there and we’re from the community. It’s the business community, some industry but mostly it is people that live and work and have jobs, businesses because of community like ours, because NASA is here. And so it’s important for them to go and express to congress my business depends on that facility or I have a business because I’m doing business with NASA. And so they listen to that message and they see how important it is to the economy but they also see how important it is to human beings, the human race.
Host: Individuals.
William Harris: Well, the complement to that is really the work we do at Space Center Houston because it’s the general public. And your elected officials are going to respond to what their constituents say is important to them and really space is the great frontier and I think it appeals to people of all ages and nations. And so we are able to inform them around what’s going on currently our main charge is interpreting what’s happening in space exploration specifically through NASA and Johnson Space Center. And so I think it’s a great complement. So we often hold briefings. We allow elected officials to come in to community meetings to hear from their constituents on all topics but it gives them a chance to actually see our exhibits and I have an opportunity too to impart messaging around what’s happening in space exploration and why it’s a value and important to our community.
Host: It seems pretty clear what Space Center Houston’s day-to-day interaction is with JSC, as you said, that’s the official visitors center.
William Harris: That is correct. On the upside for us, because every visitors center has slightly different structure, we’re also a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. So we’re independent. And so we have autonomy. But to facilitate good communication with JSC, six of our board members are executives from Johnson Space Center. So they keep us informed around what are the latest programs, initiatives, priorities. So we’re imparting correct information or latest information to the public. But when situations occur like the recent government shutdown, the furlough, we can still function. We’re not — Some of our sister visitor centers that were run through the federal agency actually closed or did not have access to facilities as we did.
Host: Right. Cindy commented a moment ago about how when you carrying the message of business people and citizens to Congress saying that this thing that you’ve got going on in our community in important and that was a major thing at the time that NASA came to this area more than, you know, 55, 57 years ago or now for contrast, any one of you, give me a sense of what this part of the world was like in 1961 when the federal government decided that they were going to establish a NASA center here, where there at the time was nothing.
Bob Mitchell: We’ll let Cindy kick that off. You’ve been here a little bit longer than me.
Cindy DeWease: A little bit longer. I know a little bit more about it. It was mostly a fishing and farming and ranching community. You know, there was lots of pastureland. There was of course access to the bay and access to the gulf and so it was great for that. And so there wasn’t a lot of industry here. There wasn’t — In fact, we were in Austin last week and went into an office and they had a map of Harris County from the late 1800s and it was fascinating to see our area because it had names instead of towns. This was Sarah Deal’s ranch and this was, you know, another ranch. So it’s fascinating to see what it was. It was a lot of nothing. So beautiful but there wasn’t a Clear Lake City. There wasn’t, you know, League City, which is still growing by leaps and bounds. And so that’s kind of a fun part of our history and folks love to hear that. They love to hear, well, what was it like, you know, in the ’60s here? And it was all new and everybody was new. And so you formed a family, a Texas family because people came from all over and you didn’t — There weren’t any clicks because nobody came from anywhere. You know, they did all come together.
Host: They didn’t all go to high school together down the road.
Cindy DeWease: That’s right. That’s right.
Bob Mitchell: So let’s just go back to that period of time. At that time, there was about 960-or-70-thousand people in the entire Houston area. Today, there’s 5.5 million. Now if you just look at our area, the area that we are responsible for, BAHEP is responsible for, it actually goes from the beltway east of Pearland, west to the ship channel, all the way to Galveston Bay. In that area alone.
Host: That’s the bay area.
Bob Mitchell: That’s bay area. In that area alone today, there’s 800,000 people. That’s how many we represent at the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership.
Host: Almost as much as were in the city of Houston proper in 1960.
Bob Mitchell: Absolutely. So things have changed and I will say that is you get right down to it, as I tell people, JSC is the heart and soul of this region. JSC is what started this region. That is where — That’s why we have 800,000 people in this region now. Of course, other industry has grown. But without JSC, you would not have had that.
Host: That was going to be my question, whether it was fair to say that putting the Johnson Space Center here was the main driver of this development.
Bob Mitchell: The only driver.
Cindy DeWease: Right.
Host: Okay.
Bob Mitchell: The only driver.
Host: I’ve always felt that was true and I’ve lived in the area since the middle ’60s. I always felt that that was true. But I haven’t done the research or to know it for a fact but the thought that well I should, I said, you know, maybe there’s something else that was a little responsible and I shouldn’t just assume. But this is what made it what it is.
Bob Mitchell: I would take it a little step further and say that if you look at the number of engineers in the Houston region, no other place in the state of Texas has that many engineers and it all started with the Johnson Space Center. If you look at every industry that we have, it’s high tech. You look at the oil, energy, healthcare, NASA, specialty chemical, all high tech jobs, all requiring engineers to exceed. So I can say that would start right here
Host: The oil industry was also centered here and a lot of the development not maybe right here but nearby is connected to that, right?
Bob Mitchell: Sure. I mean one of the biggest Exxon fields that — The biggest Exxon field that they had for many, many years was right here in Friendswood. That’s why they call it the Friendswood Development.
Host: I did do a little research. It said the Friendswood Field is centered roughly at the gulf freeway and Dixie Farm Road, which at the time was not in the city of Houston either because JSC wasn’t in the city of Houston but the humble oil company, Exxon Mobile made a large percentage of its money back in those days from right up the road here.
Bob Mitchell: Well, let me tell you a little history. At the time when they built the Johnson Space Center, the Johnson Space Center was in the City of Pasadena. So there was negotiations that were held behind the scenes between the major of Pasadena and the major of Houston because NASA when they landed on the moon, they wanted to say “Houston.” And the deal was made — They made a land swap. Houston took over the Johnson Space Center and Pasadena took over Armand Bayou. That was the land swap.
Host: Which is a nature preserve that’s just on the other side of the road.
Bob Mitchell: That’s how NASA ended up in Houston or JSC.
Cindy DeWease: They didn’t want to say “Pasadena.” [Laughter]
Bob Mitchell: Not that’s there’s anything wrong with Pasadena.
Cindy DeWease: Nothing wrong with Pasadena, right. It was more identifiable with it being Houston.
Host: I’m sorry, you were going to say?
William Harris: No.
Host: No, you weren’t. [Laughter]
William Harris: That’s fascinating. I didn’t know about the land swap. That’s interesting.
Host: You made reference a couple minutes ago to Clear Lake City and Bob to Friendswood Development. For people who are not in the Houston area, those names may not mean much but those are residential developments here in the region also responsible, a result of NASA coming to the Houston area, right?
Cindy DeWease: Right. And my family moved here in 1974 and everyone on our street worked for NASA except for my dad who worked for UPS, the man next door that worked for one of the chemical companies and the man across the street who was a preacher. And so everyone else worked for NASA. Everyone else worked for NASA. And they had to have a place to live. So Nassau Bay was built because the folks were coming here to work and they needed homes, El Lago the same way and then Friendswood Development developed an area called Clear Lake City that was annexed by Houston a few years later and so that area was here because NASA is here and folks needed homes.
Bob Mitchell: If you go back and you talk about the homes and areas that have been built up whenever JSC first established here, Nassau Bay was the first homes that were built there, 95% of the engineers and astronauts that worked at the Johnson Space Center worked or lived in Nassau Bay.
Host: And again for people who are not from the area, Nassau Bay is right out the front gate across the street.
Bob Mitchell: Absolutely. But if you look at it today, there’s about 15 or 16% and then you look over at Friendswood is somewhere in the 27% range and you look at League City is about 31%. So yes, NASA has created or Johnson Space Center has created all these communities, you know, over the years.
Host: But clearly there needed to be homes for people to live in but there needed to be all the other attendant construction and development to support all those people too.
Cindy DeWease: Right. Right. The road, NASA Road 1 which is FM 528 was named from our first chairman of the board. He named it NASA Road 1 and so he had nothing to do with, he was from Seabrook and was in the fishing community or industry but they were here and we needed to have a roadway there and so he named it NASA Road 1.
William Harris: Good marketing move.
Cindy DeWease: Wasn’t that great? He was a smart fisherman.
William Harris: Yes.
Host: And in some of the areas, they’re trying to change the name of it lately.
Cindy DeWease: Right.
Host: Slightly.
Bob Mitchell: They can call it NASA Parkway all they want but it’s really NASA Road 1.
Cindy DeWease: It’ll always be NASA Road 1.
Host: I agree, I agree. Has the development of the area and the economic developments that have come from that, has that risen and fallen with the space program over the years?
Bob Mitchell: Yes and no. Okay, so if you go back to let’s just say the Shuttle program. We had about 18,000 employees here that worked in the space program. Today we’ve got rounded off about 13.5, so yeah, it dropped but what was very unique about the NASA when the Shuttle retired and constellation was canceled, there was about 4200 people that got laid off and what we did is we worked very hard with the state of Texas to transition the NASA engineers into other industry clusters. I went to the state of Texas and said, you know, we need help. We want to keep these people in Houston. We don’t want to lose this brainpower. We don’t need the brain drain. We need to keep them. And what we did — people said well they’re aerospace engineers. Well, they were electrical engineers. They were mechanical engineers.
Host: They were software engineers first.
Bob Mitchell: Yes, Software development engineers. They just loved the space program and went into the space program. So their skills are marketable. And what we were able to do, there was no downturn in the real estate market; 88% of the people that got laid off got jobs in the Houston area, specialty chemical, healthcare. It was like 900 that went to the medical center. There was a number of them that went to energy. So the idea for people to think that we went way down after that, the housing market did not go down in this region at all.
Host: Does Space Center Houston see a rise and fall of visitors related to what happens at the Johnson Space Center?
William Harris: Well, I think it’s more NASA overall. So it’s the public interest in space and what’s transpiring and when the Shuttle program retired, that had an impact on the organization because there was a view that is NASA shutting down, is it no longer functioning and so all the visitor centers experienced a downturn in attendance and probably the most dramatic one was Kennedy because their hallmark is going for launches and there weren’t launches taking place any longer. And they actually had a nearly 50% drop in attendance. In our case, we needed to refresh our exhibits and really pivot back to being a dynamic learning destination. The organization had drifted more toward an attraction and having more kind of entertainment type content. And so with the change, we’ve actually seen a huge up spike in attendance and really the turning point for us was acquiring Independence Plaza, the 747, the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft 905 and the high-fidelity replica of the Shuttle. And we experienced an increase of attendance by nearly 200,000 people in one year and we’ve been able to sustain that and grow it beyond that point.
Host: And you’ve been able to be pretty confident that that’s why, that’s the relationship?
William Harris: Absolutely. I think — Well, the other thing and this is something we’re really emphasizing is honestly, people have enough stuff or things and what the priority in life now are experiences and so the priority for visitors is experiences they want to have a vicarious experience. They want to get behind the scenes. They want to understand how things function. And one of the unique experiences here, you really get behind the scenes at Johnson Space Center. We have the ability to take you into the working facilities and labs more so than any other NASA center or visitor center. And I think that’s why we’ve experienced such a surge. People want to understand how do you train astronauts and what are the challenges of living in space and how are we going to send humans to other celestial bodies like Mars. So those are the kind of questions we receive from our visitors.
Host: Earlier, you referred to how before Space Center Houston, visitors could just, you know, come up here and park on the curb and walk around that they can’t do anymore but, as you mention, your facility is bringing people on site. Talk about where they can go on site, what can they see.
William Harris: Absolutely. So now it’s managed of course and because of security and access and also volume of visitors because we are at 1.1 million visitors a year. You could not have that volume of people just walking around the campus at Johnson Space Center. It would be really disruptive.
Host: I wouldn’t have a place to park.
William Harris: That’s true, exactly. And so we offer kind of levels of experiences for someone who comes as a general guest to Space Center Houston, you can take a tram to see the mockup facility where there is a high-fidelity replica of the International Space Station that’s used for training and developing solutions when there’s challenges on station. There’s a whole area that used to have Shuttle and that’s now the robotics lab where they’re developing Robonaut 5 or Valkyrie, you know the most advanced independent humanoid robot in the world who’s going to support missions with astronauts in the future and we also mentor high school robotics programs. So there’s a lot of community outreach that happens through Johnson. We also will take you to see the Saturn Five building and the Saturn Five currently is the most powerful rocket, this probably will be, the next most powerful rocket that’s coming along was space launch system SLS but currently it’s the Saturn Five which took astronauts to the moon and we have one that’s made from real components, unlike the other two that are on display. So you get up and close and understand what it took to get away from Earth’s gravitational pull and go all the way to the moon.
Bob Mitchell: And just how big it is.
William Harris: Yes, exactly. It’s absolutely massive.
Host: Yeah, that’s a shock or me the first time I went and stood next to it to see just how big it is.
William Harris: And then a really busy period is we arrange special tours of the Neutral Buoyancy Lab over at Ellington Airport. So we’ll take guests over to see again how astronauts train in water, you know, to prepare for extravehicular activities or spacewalks. And that’s very exciting because it’s one of the largest indoor pools in the world and you actually see again full-scale replica of station and see astronauts often training from the viewing area. And so there are a couple of facilities we’ll take you to as well depending on accessibility. One challenge we face is this is a working laboratory. It’s a working facility and sometimes we can’t get access to things. So there is an International Space Station control room and we can take guests into viewing area most times unless there’s something going on that they don’t want any kind of disruption or distraction. We also have the Orion training room because that is one of NASA’s top priorities now is the Gateway project and returning humans to orbit the moon and using that as a base to travel deeper into space. So we’re beginning to interpret that as well.
Host: The presence of the Johnson Space Center here clearly brings in federal budget dollars that fund what’s going on. But JSC also generates a lot of partnerships with other kinds of businesses. It’s not just civil servants. It’s other people that are working here. Cindy, Bob, William, give me a sense of what other kind of partnerships have grown up in this area. What other kind of businesses have thrived in this area because NASA was here?
Cindy DeWease: Well, our chamber is made up of a lot of small businesses and mostly small business. We have Fortune 500 companies but we have flooring companies, printing companies. Bob mentioned My Flooring America as a member of BAHEP. They’re also a member of our chamber and they’re one of the flooring contractors for NASA. And they are, you know, a small business doing business in commercial but also residential and have a great contract with the Johnson Space Center. So I think Minuteman Press has a great contract with Space Center Houston. So even the small businesses and in fact next week we’re doing a workshop on how to do business with the federal government. And so it’s very important to our members on how do I get, you know, how do I have that kind of access and so our small business development center is putting that on.
Host: By the way, I heard it’s really easy to do business with the federal government.
Cindy DeWease: I’m sure it is and we’re going to find that out next week. That’s why you have to do workshops on it. Right?
Host: I guess, yeah.
Bob Mitchell: I’ll give you a couple examples as well. The Johnson Space Center partners with UTMB down in Galveston for some human factors and studies.
Host: That’s the University of Texas Medical Branch, Medical School and Hospital in Galveston.
Bob Mitchell: Correct. They have a long-term relationship with them and have a very long-term relationship with the Baylor College of Medicine and the Texas Medical Center where they’re doing — In fact, they’re doing studies on the Kelly brothers, some genetic studies with them, and then you look at the pumps and pipes where they partnered with the oil industry and the healthcare industry to do crossover within each industry cluster because if you for example if you look at the oil industry, they have pumps, they have pipes. You look at the heart business, the cardiac business, they have pumps in your heart and they have pipes. And believe it or not, some of the same calculations that they use in the oil field they use in the healthcare industry. They discovered that about eight or nine years ago. So we were able to get the aerospace community now involved in that as well. So you have the pumps and pipes. So there’s a lot of partnerships. Most recently in the last five years we created an organization called BayTech and what we do is we find companies outside of the gates that could use facilities inside the gates because they offer things here that you don’t offer anywhere else in the world.
Host: Use facilities, NASA facilities on site like?
Bob Mitchell: Like the test labs, a number of the test labs. You have companies that need that service. They can’t get it anywhere else. So what they do instead of coming here and having to negotiate with JSC, the bureaucracy, which would normally take seriously if you’re a small business owner, it would take you six months to get in here.
Host: It’s really easy.
Bob Mitchell: Well, it is now. It is now because once we created BayTech, BayTech has a Space Act Agreement with the Johnson Space Center and all of our contractors so the companies go to BayTech and within three days, you could be doing work in the Johnson Space Center. So we took it from seriously a six to nine month process down to three days. And we have a number of companies every year that come in and utilize these facilities.
William Harris: Well something I’d like to add on to that which I think is really important is increasingly NASA is open to the public helping to come up with solutions to challenges and there is a tremendous amount of tech transfer or knowledge transfer from innovation to space exploration that benefits society every day. We have a major gallery at Space Center Houston on the International Space Station and where we interpret and convey insights investigations that are taking place that have applications that benefit life on Earth. In fact, there’s a great publication called Benefits to Humanity that’s available through NASA.gov online and there’re literally thousands of examples of scientific insights that are creating products and benefits. I think, you know, you talk about the oil industry healthcare, there’re all kind of transfer of knowledge that’s taking place from research on International Space Station to life on Earth. So for example, we now have on our website something called the Innovation Challenge Gateway where we’re doing community science projects.
So we’re actually the allied partner with the next space robotics challenge and this is a really fun story. So we partnered with NASA on the last space robotics challenge that actually had cash prizes associated with it and it was to come up with five programming solutions for Robonaut 5 or Valkyrie. And so it was a worldwide challenge. If you were a US citizen or resident, you qualified for a cash prize. There were teams from all over the world that submitted applications. We narrowed it down in partnership with NASA to ten semifinalists. We brought them to Houston to Space Center Houston and then we took it another step where we had those teams mentor high school robotics teams and held the competition on the floor so the general public could experience it. And the person who won three — We had a team from a premier technological university at MIT and a couple of others, so incredibly qualified people who are working on this virtual challenge. The person who won three of the five challenges was a stay-at-home dad from Southern California who brought his six-year-old son who worked as an independent coder as a consultant. And so his insights have now been used to develop these protocols for Valkyrie.
So we’re now doing the next space robotics challenge and again, it’s going to be open to the general public and we’re doing a number of other community challenges and the public has been so interested in this and so engaged in it. And it’s just — It’s not exclusive to the Houston region. It’s people from across the nation and around the world that actually have somebody full time who’s dedicated to these community challenges. But again, it’s a way that anyone can participate in coming up with solutions that are going to benefit society ultimately in some way.
Host: That’s nice. Yeah, I remember and it’s been three, four years ago now, I remember that the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory that you referred to before was making an effort to let it be known outside the gates that the NBL was available for companies that needed to do big testing of things. You could bring a mock-up and drop it in the pool and do testing.
Bob Mitchell: Very actively involved. There was a number of companies but probably the one I want to talk about most is the oil field industry. They need to train their workers if there’s a helicopter crash how to get out of the helicopter. Okay? And so they started that process at the NBL. They had this mock helicopter and every day they would train, you know, 15 or 20 or 30 workers in this helicopter to learn if the helicopter crashed into the water, how to get out of, and how to get out, if it flipped to the left, how to get out, if it flipped to the right, how to get out, if it nosedived, how to get out. And it was an incredible project that they operate for quite some time.
Host: Yeah and they can do that a lot more efficiently than they could if they took a helicopter out here to the lake and —
Bob Mitchell: Which is basically what they were doing.
Host: They had — What those companies had been doing. Yeah. Do you see a big growth or a big change in things when NASA and Johnson Space Center start new programs? The commercial crew program is getting off, has just gotten off the ground. The first test flight was here just a couple of weeks ago. Orion is in development. Do you see any effect of how those new programs turn into more business in the area?
William Harris: Well, I think absolutely depending on what it is. So for example, with Gateway, Johnson has been identified as the site for integration, for that future space lab.
Host: You’re referring to the plan to build this lab near the moon?
William Harris: Correct. That’s right. I know one company that’s immediately hiring 400 staff. I mean, they’re trying to fill—
Host: Now?
William Harris: Right now. That’s like immediate just as a first step and so that is like, if you will, a pebble in a pond, the effect in this area because when you are awarded a big project through NASA, it has great ramifications across industry. So of course more scientists and engineers but it means more housing, it means more retail in the area, it means families are going to be relocating here potentially and enrolling in the school system. So it really has an effect across the entire community. So absolutely there is a great impact.
Bob Mitchell: I’ll just add to that I believe we’ve turned a corner on that. It has been a very challenging in the recent past on getting new programs here at the Johnson Space Center. But I really believe starting with the Gateway, we’ve turned the corner on that. So I’m excited about the opportunity that we are going to be the home of integration for that.
Host: In a sense having long-term successful programs that were centered here prohibited new programs from coming. We were still flying shuttles for as long as we were. We are still flying the International Space Station. And it doesn’t leave as much room for new stuff and new people without a whole bunch of new government funding.
Bob Mitchell: True. You look back at the budget, you know, and you go back six years ago, our budget was about 16.5 billion, the entire federal budget for NASA. Today, it’s 21.5. The Johnson Space Center when flying the Shuttle, our budget was about $7.2 billion a year went through the Johnson Space Center. Today, it’s about 4.6 billion that goes through the Johnson Space Center. Of that 4.6 billion, about 1.2 billion is in salaries alone. It’s pretty solid.
Host: Yeah. When NASA has big events, you know, shorter term impact but when there are big events here like announcing commercial crew assignments or something like that, does that show up, does that show up for businesses in the area?
Cindy DeWease: I would say probably it does. I mean, I don’t know that I’ve ever thought about it in that way but of course, I mean we have an expanding economy and businesses are still moving here that have nothing to do with being a technology company, I mean look at the growth at Baybrook Mall and real estate and you’re constantly seeing some of the older facilities being torn down with brand-new, you know, strip centers or whatever going up. And so obviously there’s a strong, there’s still a strong economy here and part of it is the diversity of the area but it’s still, we’re very proud to say we’re the home of the Johnson Space Center, our country’s astronauts. And I travel for the chamber of commerce nationwide or statewide and whenever where is Clear Lake, well that is the home of the Johnson Space Center. Oh really, you know. So it does — There’s a sense of pride for that identification.
Bob Mitchell: You know, the commercial crew announcement I think affects our economy a little bit differently. That process has been going on for a couple of years before they make that official announcement. When they make that official announcement and they hold it here and the media shows up, that benefits the entire Houston area. That’s when people say, oh my gosh, NASA is open. They are doing business. They are working. It helps — It’s got to help William over at the Space Center Houston because it gets people excited about the space program. So I think that’s where we benefit the most is when they make those announcements. The media comes out. They talk about it. People get excited. And that to me is the biggest benefit.
William Harris: I think that’s a really good point because we work very closely with Visit Houston and the Greater Convention and Visitors Bureau and we and that’s helping Houston attract more big conventions and professional meetings and things of that nature and then we become a top destination for an event or other tours or some other experience associated with that convention or that business meeting that might be taking place here. We’re all very focused right now on, you know, we have the big convention of oil producer, the world summit on oil is coming up really soon. You know, we’re bidding for other kind of major events. It helped us secure Super Bowl, you know, a couple years ago. These are all factors and so the fact that we have a NASA center here and a major visitor’s center where you can come and experience the space program is a big plus. I mean, the whole Super Bowl 51 was themed around space exploration.
Host: Yeah. Well I was going to ask you about that. NASA’s here, so the giant visitor’s center is here and it’s now the number one visitors’ attraction in this region. Does your presence there help other visitors’ attractions in the area and contribute to other things coming in just because Space Center Houston is there?
William Harris: I think absolutely yes and I see us as part of the larger community and we really are more so than ever trying to collaborate with other organizations in town. You know, one of our top priorities at Space Center Houston is diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility and so we’re really striving to be as accessible to everyone in the region. We’re actually the first science center in the world that’s been certified as an autism service center and that meant that our facility went through a complete review that we, all our staff went through training and testing and we have special support features like quiet rooms and kits that families can check out who have someone on the autism spectrum. But that’s just one example of many that we’re —
Host: I admit, that’s a thing I didn’t even know was a thing.
William Harris: Yeah, well, sadly, autism is very prevalent and even more so in our society. So how do we be accessible to everyone and a welcoming organization for everyone. So we’ve been partnering as well with dogs for the blind where they actually train seeing eye dogs in our facility during peak days so the dogs are accustomed to large numbers of people coming through. We work — We offer special camping and overnights for all kinds of groups including blue star family and gold star families and working with all types of associations and clubs as well just to give everyone an opportunity to come together in community because space is just a great platform to learn about all aspects of society and all academic areas.
Host: I had nephews in Boy Scouts who used to go overnight campout at Space Center Houston.
William Harris: Yeah. We do badges for Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.
Host: And you mentioned the Super Bowl. And I think maybe a lot of people wouldn’t connect the Super Bowl in Houston having anything to do with NASA but it did.
Bob Mitchell: It was a plan. There was definitely a plan. And I will tell you — I’ll talk to a lot of people in different cities and I think the NFL will tell you that Houston was probably the best one, best location they’ve had in ten or 15 years simply because of what NASA did with their exhibits. It was a huge draw, huge draw. I mean, I can’t explain it. William, you might be able to —
William Harris: Well, I think it’s important to have a sense of place wherever you go especially for big sporting events or any kind of convention. So we have World Petroleum Congress coming which I alluded to a little bit earlier. That’ll probably be themed very much around the NASA and the space program. That was the case for Super Bowl but you want people to have the sense of place where you’re going that’s a major part of our identity here in Houston. It is Space City.
Host: And Space City is already, you can see it everywhere. It’s gearing up for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. How do you imagine that is or is it already having an impact right here in this community?
Cindy DeWease: Oh yeah. It’s very nostalgic and so they like that history and that memory of that and we’ve gone through old pictures and looked at stuff. And so we’ve themed some of our events at Epicurean Evening that we have in January at Space Center Houston. That was themed after Apollo’s 50th anniversary. We did our boat parade with a moon and included the logo for that. And so it’s an exciting time and makes people remember and appreciate what they did. I mean what those folks did that had never been done before and so I think it has a great impact and especially in this area when people feel so close to it, whether they lived here or were a part of it at all, they still feel close to that.
William Harris: I think absolutely. As you can imagine, we are doing major activity and we’re collaborating with headquarters and the other visitors’ centers. My belief is that Houston will be like New Years Eve in New York. On July 20th, this is where everyone’s going to be focused and we have put together a major calendar of programming and activity. We’re working actually very closely with organizations across the city with Houston First and Visit Houston, our promotional agencies of the City of Houston and linking to a national calendar that NASA has posted as well but we’re really in Houston focusing on the whole summer. We’re calling it Space City Summer and have programming happening and you can go to our website to learn more. We have a calendar with those things posted. So we have everything from our thought leader series where we’re bringing in luminaries from the Apollo program. Too, we’re doing a space on screen series, so every month we’re showing a feature film. So we showed in January “Last Man on the Moon” and did a panel with Gene’s daughter and his first wife that gave an insider perspective on what transpired.
We showed “The Right Stuff” last month. We’re showing “Hidden Figures” next Friday at Space Center Houston. But I do want to focus on that period in July which I think is going to be so exciting here where beginning on launch day, the 16th of July, we have a panel or sorry a roundtable with 14 of the flight controllers from the Apollo era who are all going to talk about aspects of their experiences. We’re going to have all kinds of events and programs. Really the huge day of course is going to be the 20th which was the day we landed on the moon and took the first steps and the great thing is the first steps were mid afternoon on a Saturday Central time. So we’re going to have a countdown experience and then in the evening about 9:58 PM is when Neil Armstrong, you know, had the first boot on the surface of the moon and we’re actually planning a huge concert and festival that day. And then we’re also at the close and splashdown which is really important at Johnson because we, the people here did not relax until the astronauts were safely back on Earth, out of the capsule and on the deck of the carrier and so we’re going to be a big ’60s themed party on the 24th on splashdown day. So those are just a highlight of the few things we’re doing. We’re also, as I mentioned, —
Host: Before I forget to ask you again, what’s the website?
William Harris: Oh, spacecenter.org. So if you Google or put in your browser space center Houston, we’ll come up and you can go to our calendar section and learn more. But there are going to be things happening all over the city. On the 20th, discovery green is going to be showing the new documentary “Apollo 11.” The Museum of Natural Sciences has interpretive domes that they’re going to have all over the city. We’re actually reaching out to surrounding communities that have agreed to be part of the celebration that day. So we’ll have a lot happening here. There are going to be celebrations happening throughout the Houston region.
Host: Nice. Are there bad aspects of the area being so reliant and having prospered so much from the government being here?
Bob Mitchell: Oh, I’d say no. I don’t think — We have such a diversified economy here now. We really do and it all started with the Johnson Space Center.
Host: But it’s not 100% reliant on the Johnson Space Center.
Bob Mitchell: Absolutely not. I would say our economy here now today, believe it or not, is somewhere around 22 or 23% reliant on the Johnson Space Center. Absolutely.
Host: That seems like a small number.
Bob Mitchell: It is but it’s the heart and soul. It’s what drives it.
William Harris: Something I’d like to add and I totally agree with that that it’s become much more diversified which is a good thing but the space program now works in partnership with so many entities and I think the genesis of the commercial sector was a natural thing. You know, Houston now has the innovation quarter, the technological quarter along the spine of the city, along the tramline and Johnson Space Center is working very closely with that initiative. And so because there’s so much innovation that happens here and so much knowledge transfer that can stimulate new businesses. So we’re really a key part of that. I mean, Space Center Houston has just established a partnership with the University of Houston and San Jacinto College and workforce development because we don’t have enough people here in science and engineering and we’re constantly having to recruit people from other areas but we could home grow more of those qualified individuals and so we’re really looking at how can we improve the pool, and increase the pool of local talent.
Host: What aspects of the relationship am I not seeing, have we not talked about? What other important things are going on here because NASA is here?
Bob Mitchell: Well, go back and talk about the spaceport. We created the spaceport about five years ago. I went to Mayor Annise Parker and suggested to her that she go through the process of creating a spaceport and she looked at me like I was crazy and I said, Annise, I’m not talking about launching rockets. I’m talking about supersonic travel, air travel. I’m talking about going from Houston to New York in 40 minutes and going to Houston to England in two and a half hours. Those planes are being designed and developed today. Where better to do it than in Houston? We’re an international city. There’s only one city in the United States of America that has been embassies than we do and that’s New York and they beat us by five. We are an international city. And we are, we would be — When I told her, I said we would be the only spaceport in an MSA. The other spaceports, there’s ten of them located all around the US but all of them are not in an MSA. They’re right on the coast. They’re in the dessert. They’re in West Texas. They’re in South Texas. Where better than right here? So she went through the process. We got with Mario Diaz at Houston Airport System. He is a bulldog. He got it done in about two and a half years. We spent a lot of money to get it done. But we are growing the spaceport.
Host: And how does that designation and it’s at Ellington Airport which is a few miles up the road from JSC, what does that designation mean is going to happen there?
Bob Mitchell: That means that planes can take off and land and travel at supersonic travel over the gulf. Right now you can’t fly over the US but that’s quickly changing. NASA has created a new plane that has a low boom effect that we had tested at Galveston this past year. It passed in flying colors. And that’s the next step to completing those type of aircraft and being able to fly over the continental United States at supersonic travel. You have to be a spaceport in order to launch and land supersonic travel aircraft.
Host: Nice. What about pride? People around here care about the fact that NASA’s here?
Bob Mitchell: Absolutely. I mean, we’re Texans.
Cindy DeWease: Right.
Bob Mitchell: We’re very proud of this region and NASA and what it’s done for the community. Again, it goes back to the heart and soul and it’s really grown the city of Houston into what it is. It really has.
Cindy DeWease: And so many folks came here, they weren’t from here, they came here and they’re still here. They retired here. They stayed in this community because it’s a great community and it honors the NASA tradition and the JSC tradition and I think why would they stay here if they’re family is not here and so —
William Harris: I think the other measure of that is you look at the recognition. So if you go to any of the big sporting events, there’s always a NASA night with the Astros or the Rockets or the Texas or the Dynamos—
Bob Mitchell: Or the rodeo.
Cindy DeWease: Or the rodeo. Yeah.
William Harris: The rodeo. Yeah, you can go on and on with the examples.
Host: Yes, there’s a rodeo.
Cindy DeWease: And there’s a NASA night there.
Host: Yes there is.
William Harris: Yes, so there’s is recognition and those organizations would not hold those nights if they didn’t know the public would embrace it. The public care and are passionate about it and they’re really proud that this is the home of NASA center.
Host: William, Cindy, Bob, thank you for sharing your expertise on this. Very interesting conversation.
William Harris: Thank you.
Cindy DeWease: Thank you for inviting us.
Bob Mitchell: Thanks for the opportunity.
Host: Thanks.
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Host: If you want to learn more about NASA in the Houston area, we’ve posted links to our guests’ organizations. Also check out NASA.gov/Johnson for information on JSC. You can go online to keep up with all things NASA at NASA.gov. It would also be good for you to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. You will thank me. When you go to those sites, you can use the #AskNASA to submit a question or suggest a topic for us. Please indicate that it’s for Houston, We Have a Podcast. You can find the full catalog of all our episodes by going to NASA.gov/podcast. When you do that, please check out the other cool NASA podcasts that you can find there like Welcome to the Rocket Ranch, On a Mission, NASA in Silicon Valley. There are more. They’re all available right there in the same spot where you can find us, NASA.gov/podcast. This podcast was recorded March 13, 2019. Thanks to Alex Perryman, Gary Jordan and Norah Moran for their part in the production, to Debbie Conder for suggesting the topic, and to our guests Cindy DeWease, William Harris and Bob Mitchell. We’ll be back next week.