Jaena Kim
Welcome back to Longitude Sound Bytes, where we bring innovative insights from around the world directly to you. Prepare to launch into our 2nd space series of Longitudes of Imagination with key players of the NASA Gateway Program. I’m Jaena Kim, Longitude Fellow and law student at the University of Ottawa. Today’s innovative insights are truly brought to you from across the globe – right from an English Castle from the 15th century. Technically, in the eyes of the law, that makes me an alien in the United Kingdom. But that just means I’m not a citizen of the country – definitely not E.T. or from outer space!

Alongside Longitude Fellows Jade McAdams, Quint Smits, and Tony Zhou, we were thrilled to interview Jon Olansen, Julia Badger, Sean Fuller and Emma Lehnhardt from the NASA Gateway Program. Are you ready for a sneak peek of the upcoming episodes? Julia and Quint start with a great introduction to Gateway:

Quint Smits
Could you summarize the Gateway project in a few sentences for the lay audience?

Julia Badger
Gateway is going to be a space station that will be in orbit around the moon. It’s meant to be, if you will, a gateway to further human exploration both assisting human operations on the moon surface, as well as future exploration of Mars.

Jaena
Half a billion people watched the first moon landing in 1969. The world population has doubled since then, I can’t imagine how many of us will be tuning in for the first mars landing in the future. The Gateway Program is also a vital component of NASA’s Artemis Campaign. Emma reveals an artistic connection between Artemis and a blast from NASA’s past:

Emma Lehnhardt
The Artemis campaign is an initiative of NASA to return to the moon, to land the first woman and first person of color on the moon, and also to establish all of the capabilities that we need to explore the moon and set us up for further exploration beyond. Artemis is in Greek mythology, the twin sister of Apollo. So it seemed very poetic and a great name for our return to the moon in this generation.

Jaena
Thousands of people worked together behind the scenes of Apollo 11 to land the first man on the moon, and NASA has only continued to accomplish numerous achievements since. Sean was the operations lead for Expedition One, which sent an international team of three to successfully work and live aboard the International Space Station for the very first time. Sean and Tony discuss the transferability of experience from one project to another, and the balance of applying just the right amount:

Tony Zhou
So from your long tenure with NASA, and you were a part of, I believe the Expedition One, what are some lessons that you’ve learned just from starting right immediately, you know, having graduated college, till working now, and the input that you give in each new project?

Sean Fuller
Yeah, it’s, you know, with each new project I say you bring your history and knowledge base for it, but don’t let that pollute the future as well in looking at it. And so you’ve got a great background, a great knowledge from it but you can apply the new lessons and the new ways into a future project.

… So myself personally, kind of as you go through it, each time you get new opportunities, you certainly don’t forget the past, you build upon the past. And I also tell folks, if you’re going to change something, it behooves you to know why you’re going to change. Change for the sake of change is not necessarily a good thing. But learn from the past, learn from the histories and if there’s a better way to go try to address something, certainly do that. And I’ve had a lot of those opportunities for better or worse over the years because of my continued involvement in different aspects of the international partnership.

Jaena
The spirit of collaboration, particularly international cooperation, can be found right in American law. The National Aeronautics and Space Act is the US federal statute that created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration – which we all know as NASA! Paraphrasing Section 404 of the National Aeronautics and Space Act, the administration shall make every effort to enlist the support and cooperation of other countries and international organizations. But Emma shares a personal example of how collaborative effort is rooted even simply within the different divisions at NASA:

Emma Lehnhardt
When I was at NASA headquarters, I had felt this whole time that I could contribute to the mission. But, you know, when I introduce myself to people, I often say, Yes, Hi, I’m Emma, I work at NASA, but I’m not an astronaut. I’m not a rocket scientist. I’m not an engineer…

You know, I was doing some work implementing a law at NASA, which wasn’t the sexiest or most fun thing to do…and our Associate Administrator at the time—and I actually presented that work to the White House—he pulled out of his pocket a slide that I had prepared for him with the results of the analysis. I looked over at him in the meeting, and he had handwritten notes all over it, which were very apparently written over multiple periods of time and useful for him as a cheat sheet. That was such a cool moment for me. I ended up talking to him about that a little bit later on. And he said, Emma, you have to understand that essentially what you are doing when you are implementing policies, when you’re working on budget or the PP and C work of the agency, really is systems engineering in another vein.

Jaena
It sounds like teamwork really helps spacework glimmer and shine. But Jon and Jade talk about an addition of something more that truly makes a planet of a difference when working on any project:

Jade McAdams
You work as the HALO manager, so I’d love to just hear a little bit more about what that entails and kind of like unique challenges with that position, but also like your favorite parts about it.

Jon Olansen
Favorite things. I got to start with just fabulous people that that we have across the country that work on this. You pick any of the contractors that are supporting, the vendors that are supporting, the NASA centers where people are working, and then all the international companies providing too, it’s it really it’s fabulous to be able to work with such competent passionate people about what they do, and that that makes me enjoy coming to work every day.

Jade McAdams
A common thread I’ve noticed, because I’ve been, I’ve done a few of these Longitude interviews for the podcast now and everybody who is involved in a project of, you know, not similar magnitude but just something new and creative, in a sense really likes the people they’re working with, and values their team more than anything. So it’s nice to hear that.

Jaena
With a universe to explore beyond our comprehension, NASA’s projects are definitely one of different magnitude. So it’s not very surprising that there are bumps along the journey. Julia shares her take on problem solving with Quint:

Quint Smits
When you do approach some issues, how do you come up with a solution?

Julia Badger
There’s no one way to go about doing that. From my standpoint, I’ve always thought that, you know, it takes it takes a team, it takes a village to make these things happen. But you don’t want to have necessarily too many cooks in the kitchen, if you will. You don’t want all the hands to be on deck for every problem. And so it takes a good team leader to kind of organize a work plan. I’m a big fan of Tiger Teams, where you pick a select group of folks to spend some time diving deep into what that problem is and trying to figure out the ways to solve it…

… And then you have to implement, I think that’s a main part for me is that no design is complete until we’ve tried it out, we’ve tested it, it doesn’t have to be beautiful or perfect. You know, I like to tell my kids that cardboard is good enough for you might have a grand plan and you want us to like cut all this wood and plastic and screw it together. But if you can’t show me out of cardboard first, it’s not going to fly. So that’s, that’s one of the things we do even from a software perspective is that we don’t have to do it perfectly. But let’s get it in there and test it out. And after that, then I think you can really start solving that problem and getting it done the right way.

Jaena
The Gateway Program truly embodies limitless human potential when we come together. Something that began as a simple dream of identifying the shining light in the night sky to the first moon landing and now a return mission back, human curiosity fuels future space exploration.

Sean Fuller
…one of the great things that I do see in Gateway in this partnership and with even within NASAs, you come across a challenge, a block, if you will, but you open it up, and a team comes in and attacks it. And before you know it, you’ve got a great solution. And next thing you know, it was that was just a small speed bump in the road, it wasn’t a block along the way.

… I’ve seen a lot of interest grow around the world, in potential new partners on the future. And that’s always good to see. Because that again, it shows not only our initial partnership, but it’s expanding it to more than the the overall fever, if you will, around the globe of doing this of doing the expansion and humans returning to the moon. Being a part of that as not we as one nation, but we as a humanity expand to the moon but but also like I’ve said, you know, many different nations certainly have their sights on how can we work this together, expand beyond the moon and get to Mars.

Tony Zhou
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there definitely is a very human element to this…That’s really incredible. And I think that’s part of why I guess space is such an interesting field for everyone. Because it’s not only advancing tech, but you know, we’re talking about a lot of different sort of issues of humanity, how we can like unite as one in a way, and not be in conflict with one another.

Sean Fuller
… And you know, it’s gonna give us a lot of great opportunities out there. I think it really tells you, you know, that humans have a curiosity, what’s beyond the next hill, what’s beyond that next mountain that was part of our exploration in the US and discovering the new lands to the west, and we’re doing it now. But it’s not on Earth. It’s above Earth. And it’s going farther. It’s going to go to Mars and really expanding human knowledge. And, as you said, it really is bringing folks together for that. And that’s what’s so key.

Jaena
So what now? I’m glad I wasn’t the only one left curious about the future of space travel! Jade asks Jon:

Jade McAdams
What do you foresee as being the direction and like forward progress that we can make after Gateway after Artemis? What is like your next vision for space exploration?

Jon Olansen
…Gateway is a way for us to advance technologies and to learn how to operate as I was describing earlier out in cislunar space, but it serves as that blueprint for future exploration. So if you’re going to go to Mars, you’re going to think about what orbiting station do I need to have that that I can then from there, gain access to the surface, right? Those are opportunities then for you to think about, and everything you’ve learned here on Gateway, and how then from Gateway, you’ve had the human landing system and been able to get down to the surface and what the crews have learned from those experiences, right? You can take those lessons, and you continue to advance that blueprint every step of the way. So Mars is then that next piece, and then beyond from there, but it’s all about, you’re creating a blueprint that you’re able to replicate and advance.

Jaena
NASA’s space odyssey from the Earth to the Moon and eventually Mars serve as a great reminder of human collaboration and accomplishment.

This brings us to the end of our intro episode. You can follow Longitude on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to make sure you don’t miss our next series with the Gateway team filled with the wisdom, experience, and stories. You can also visit our website at Longitude.Site, for more information and content.