My Space Story

[Music]

hi

my name is alyssa carson and ever since

i was a little girl i have always been

interested

in wanting to become an astronaut in the

idea of traveling to mars one day

looking back i don’t remember everything

in my childhood but

the best guess i can really come up with

and same for my dad the best thing that

he can kind of come up with

is that it might have been an episode of

the backyardigans which is this little

cartoon i used to watch all the time on

nickelodeon and basically they had a

mission to mars episode

and i even had the poster for that

episode mission to mars hung up

my bedroom and it’s really the only

place we can think of as to where i

would have heard the word mars or

space or anything like that so it’s kind

of where my passion for space began

really just starting to ask questions

about space and mars and i’ve developed

a

love for space and passion for it and

wanting to pursue some sort of career

in it ever since so i really started out

by just asking for

any information i could get about space

whether that was going to the library

and looking

for books or videos or posters anything

like that

i eventually got the opportunity to go

to space camp in huntsville alabama

which was really amazing

and there it was just where i kind of

flourished and learning all this

information about space

um history of space the future of space

building my own model rocket

playing astronaut all these really fun

things but that really helps me explore

what i would actually want to do in

space

and what was actually going on in the

space industry and what opportunities

were there

so kind of growing up i continued to go

to different camps along the way

um space camp in izmir turkey space camp

in laval canada

virginia space flight academy just all

sorts of different things to kind of

learn as much as i could about what was

going on in the space industry and what

opportunities there were to kind of help

me figure out what i wanted to do

from then on i eventually joined project

possum which is a cis and science

research organization

so possum actually stands for polar

suborbital science in the upper

mesosphere

which basically just means that we do

science um especially dealing in the

atmosphere but we do all sorts of other

signs as well

so for example with project possum i’ve

been able to do some really amazing

research opportunities such as

microgravity flights water survival

training g-force training decompression

spacesuit evaluations we work a lot with

final frontier spacesuit design which

has been really awesome

so it’s been a really amazing

opportunity i’ve been able to

have doing real life research while in

high school and now in college so

currently i

am a sophomore in college studying

astrobiology at florida tech in hopes to

be an astrobiologist

and then in turn applying that into

space so ever since i was little i was

trying to figure out what i wanted to do

kind of landed on astrobiology and then

since then i’ve been building a resume

and building up those skills to

eventually apply to the astronaut

selection process so that’s kind of

my goal and kind of how i’ve gotten to

this point and so a little bit about

what’s actually going on right now in

the space industry and kind of the hopes

for the future so looking right now the

plans or the current plans really are to

go back

to the moon sometime in the 2020s and

then on to mars in the 2030s

so that is kind of the time frame that

we’re hoping for

there’s a brand new rocket the sls space

launch system and orion capsule but

those are going to be

new to the space industry um once they

are fully built and prepared and ready

for humans to take flight

and those are going to be the components

that are going to get us to mars for the

first time so that’s all really exciting

there’s a whole lot of science to be

done in terms of mars and also going

back

to the moon going back to the moon is

really going to be a lot of just

testing and learning about the new

rocket how it works is it safe for

people

is it um capable of even bringing us to

the moon if it can’t get us to the moon

then it most likely can’t bring us to

mars so that’s really going to be

the whole point of the artemis program

which we will start seeing more

development in the next coming years but

really the grand scheme of things for

our mission to mars is that we would

have

um this brand new rocket bring us to

mars which should take around six months

or so

and then once the astronauts are

actually on mars they’ll spend around a

year they’re doing all sorts of science

research um all of the typical things

you would picture an astronaut doing

on the red planet at the same time

they’ll also be doing a lot of

housekeeping whether that’s changing air

filters

or maintaining some sort of garden to

have

a better food supply and those sorts of

things and that’s really going to be

what the astronauts are doing while they

are on mars

hopefully learning lots of amazing

things the goal with mars is that we

have so many crazy ideas of

colonizing mars terraforming mars yet we

really need a better understanding

of how realistic those goals are and

what we can actually do with them

eventually the astronauts will come back

six months six to nine month journey

back and then that will be the end of

that mission

so a lot of exciting things to look

forward to in the space industry as well

as

the idea of commercial space coming into

play you know spacex has now

sent astronauts to space which has been

really exciting

um but it’s going to be really

interesting to see all that develop

whether spacex continues to send

um astronauts to the national space

station whether spacex has has ideas of

going to mars

um virgin galactic with space tourism

it’s going to be a whole lot of space

coming up in the next few years so that

should be something really excited

especially for those who are interested

in pursuing some sort of space career

so the good thing um to hear really is

that there

is going to be a whole lot of

opportunities within the space industry

um i definitely think that with going

back to the moon coming up soon

eventually going to mars coming soon as

well as spacex virgin

blue origin not to mention all the other

companies and globally as well how

active we are being in space right now

so

i truly believe that we’re going to be

getting to a point where there’s more

astronauts

more jobs in space more talk of space so

that’s all really exciting

so if you are someone who is interested

in

pursuing some sort of space career i can

give you some advice in that

or honestly it definitely can relate

towards any dream whatsoever or any

career here on earth as well

but i want to give some a few tips i’ve

learned through my experiences

and hopefully share it with you guys so

definitely the first step

is really just deciding what you want

your dream to be

there are so many different choices of

what we can actually do with our lives

and so a lot of times that can be super

intimidating

but it’s all about what you’re

passionate about i definitely think

that it’s totally worth being obsessed

with whatever you’re going into and

enjoying what you do

so i do think that we all have a passion

for something or an interest for

something that we can pursue and

you can kind of look back at school you

know what are you more interested in

what subjects are you interested in

because something like

math can be a math teacher versus an

engineer which are two very different

things but both involve math so you can

kind of

adventure to all sorts of different

careers especially looking within the

space industry there’s a lot of careers

that we don’t typically think of but are

definitely there

you definitely do not have to study some

sort of science or

stem major to actually be involved with

space there’s a whole lot of psychology

involved journalism

and so much more other majors that you

can actually apply to space there’s

someone who has to prepare

all the food that goes up to the

astronauts there’s someone who has to

study the

food psychology and what astronauts eat

and what they eat and when they eat it

and how that affects them so

there’s a whole lot of opportunities

that you guys can look into to actually

start

finding what you’re interested in so

look to kind of connect you know if

you’re interested

in food but also interested in space

figure out ways to connect those to do

something that you’re really going to

love

the second bit of advice i can really

give you is really to be vocal about

what your dreams are

it’s so important to tell people what

you’re interested in doing because you

never know where those opportunities are

going to come from

so let’s say for example you’re

interested in robotics and eventually

wanted to pursue

space robotics that was something

totally awesome and even when you’re

young you can get involved in building

your own robot

going to robotics competitions which is

already going to start building your

resume

and getting you well along into a career

in robotics but while you’re at those

robotics competitions it’s important to

tell someone like hey yeah i love

building robots and you know in the

future i hope to get involved in space

robotics

and even that little statement or

telling someone is you know

a little thing that you might be

interested in space robotics you know

they could say oh i happen to know

someone who knows someone who’s

interested in space

um and works in the industry or someone

who actually does that as a job

so you really never know where those

opportunities are going to come from so

i really want to encourage you

to be vocal about your dreams and tell

everyone what you want to do

i know that when i was younger saying i

want to be an astronaut and go to mars

it sounded like the absolute most crazy

thing but i promise it’s becoming more

and more of a reality the more i’ve

worked towards it

so don’t be afraid to tell people what

you want to do because if

if it is something that you’re

passionate about then you can definitely

make it a reality

now the third topic that i really want

to touch on here

is the importance of having some sort of

support system

or some sort of person in your life that

is there to

tell you that you can keep going and

tell you that you can get to

where you want to be for me it was

really my dad because when i was younger

saying i wanted to be an astronaut and

go to mars he was super encouraging

of just telling me yes you can do

whatever you want to do and he didn’t

really have

anything else to say but support me and

go to camps with me

travel with me and all of that so that’s

been really amazing to have just a

constant support

so looking at your own life whether that

is a parent or a friend or a teacher it

really can be anyone but just having

someone to

kind of be by your side or every now and

then just tell you yeah you got this or

have some sort of support can make a

huge difference

there’s so many different things that we

do that has been

that we really need support to kind of

help us along even and a lot of the

different trainings or research that

i’ve done

it’s always been amazing to have either

like a team member someone just

encouraging

you along the way so i’d really urge you

to find someone or someone

in your life to really support you and

what you’re doing to help you follow

your dreams but also remember

that it’s important that you possibly

could be that person for someone else

so continue to look for that person to

help support you in your dreams or if

you’ve already found them

really keep keep them close because it

makes a huge difference when you’re

going after your dreams

but i definitely believe that we can all

accomplish our own dreams in our own way

we have so many big ideas and big dreams

that we want to accomplish for example

like the mission to mars

is a very large dream but we do it with

thousands and thousands of people all

around the country

contributing to make that a reality and

they’re even working today

even though that the mission is several

years away so there’s a whole lot of

hard work that goes into achieving

dreams and whether that is

pursuing a career or taking up a new

position at your job that you already

have or

starting a new project a new goal

whatever it may be

all these things can kind of contribute

to that and really make it feel more

realistic and something that you can do

just remember that

if you’re passionate about it if it’s

something that you really want to do you

can achieve it so really follow your

dreams never let anyone take your dreams

away from you

um and yeah really just stick with it

because you never know where those

opportunities or where you might lead to

so yeah i just really want to encourage

you to stick with every

whatever your dreams are um i think that

the worst is to look back and regret on

it so even though it may sound crazy

absolutely go for it and yeah continue

to

hopefully support the space industry it

is really amazing to

see space becoming slightly more trendy

recently so that’s been really amazing

to see so i really love seeing public

support because i truly believe that we

can’t do anything in the space industry

without that so

continue to follow your own dreams

support space and

i hope to see you guys either working in

the space industry or achieving whatever

your dreams may be

thank you