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