The TedXHouston Talk:
The first thing was to recreate my TedX Houston talk, scheduled for Oct 12. Sometime in July, someone had "nominated" me to give a TedX Houston talk. These are short presentations on something that's supposed to be creative, informative, and entertaining. I had seen just maybe two or three in general, and knew they were something much different than the usual technical talks I give. They even had to interview me to see if I was worthy!! What the Hell, people? Who would nominate me and just what were they looking for?? As it turned out they were looking for a fun talk on space station science. Oh! I could do that. Just had to create a different set of "Ted Audience" type of charts and keep it to under 12 minutes.
I was well on my way to doing that, when the furlough hit. NASA told us we couldn't do ANY kind of outreach pertaining to our NASA jobs during this period, even if it was volunteer. The theme of this year's TedX Houston day was "The Other Things." Ironically, this comes from JFK's speech: we will go to the moon and do these other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. I say ironically because here we were, furloughed, and I was restricted to present anything to do with my affiliation with space. And now this was hard. Here I was, a person with no identity, really. What could I possibly talk about and who would care? One of the TedX Houston curators called me to talk about it. So he asked me, "What's your other thing?" Great. I didn't have an answer. Nobody in the Ted audience would really care about my adventures in motherhood, or my interests in archaeology or teaching. WHAT DO YOU MEAN OTHER THING? Oh for God's sake, does this mean I HAVE NOTHING IMPORTANT TO OFFER TO ANYONE outside of NASA?
Lord knows I lack creativity, but I had to pull something out on the spot on the phone. So I did, and they liked it, and I had to create a whole new set of charts the week before the presentation. And I had to practice, practice, practice. Add some drama, humor, and keep it under 12 minutes. The day of the event was super fun, and I brought my neighbor/friend, RM with me because she is super fun and I knew she'd really enjoy the day. We were treated so nicely and enjoyed the other presentations and meeting people. I got to know Don Pettit (astronaut) beyond my interactions with him at work (he too was a speaker), and really just gained so much from the day. I talked about "The Other Things Of Science" and I got to meet the person who had nominated me afterwards. She had heard my space station science presentation in the past and that's why she nominated me. I was relieved to hear she was so pumped up by the talk I'd just given, and understood the circumstances. Turns out I pulled it off. The mantra "fake it till you make it" really works. Afterwards, plenty of folks came up to connect with me and wanted to keep in touch for other opportunities. People were freaking high-fiving me in the parking lot and saying "thank you" for my presentation. REALLY? I even went to the after-party social by myself, which turned out to be really fun (anyone who knows me realizes how big a deal his is for me). Going out there without my NASA identity, with a completely different topic, and people responding to it so positively, pushed the boundaries for me even further than what I'd learned about mself from my astronaut interviews in January. Since Paul and Anna were out of town, the next day I simply slept in (approximately 7:30am!), ate crap food, and watched TV/read The War of Art in my PJ's all day just to recover.
Growing the Grocery Station:
Phone calls, emails, onsite visits, website updgraes for searchability, anything I could do to pump up the business, I did it. I whined to Paul. I was encouraged by the book, the War of Art, which identified anything you do out of creativity that takes you from a lower plane to a higher plane faces Resistance. So I did the "hard things". I talked to people. I answered emails and voice mails. I went to a freaking "Business After Hours" social event put on by the Chamber of Commerce, which I joined back in September. Again, this was HARD. I showed up by myself, and chatted it up with other community businesses over free booze and food. People approached me, asked about my business, and responded positively, and took it seriously. They were intrigued. I followed along. They had ideas for me and people they wanted me to meet. They had advice, and they too hated these social networking things. The small business entrepreneurs told me it was hard ( I mean I kinda knew that from living with Paul, but really realized it is a widely-known fact among small business owners). They had put themselves out there, invested time, heart, and money, to make it work. FULL TIME, I might add. The perspective for me was huge because I had invested way less money and time, and here I had been, crying over why my business wasn't bringing in the big bucks like I'd originally intended! And I really liked these people. These guys made a huge impact on me for the one hour I could spend there, before having to rush downtown to the TedX speaker's reception that evening (dear God ANOTHER social event. Back to back, same evening. The ultimate test. Part 1: me being the small business creator. Part 2: me being the out-of-work-NASA-scientist-wait-what-should-we-call-you-again???). I picked up Don Pettit for the drive downtown for the social, and the conversation was super fun. He asked about how my astronaut interview week had gone, and we talked all about it. Something I never thought I'd talk about with many astronauts at all. We talked science, engineering, and politics. Don is a science superstar and astronaut. The universe was continuously pushing me to have intimidating conversations during this furlough, and so I did. Fake it till you make it.
The time I invested in the Grocery Station actually had an impact. I did see a number of new orders increase, and new inquiries.
Stay At Home Mom:
After 3 weeks of coming off of Prevacid with high hopes at the end of September, and Anna eating completely normally again, the reflux hit Anna hard again during the weeks I was home. I was able to focus on treatments for her, research specialists, talk to the school nurse, write ntes to the teacher, stay up at night with her to keep her comfortable, eat lunch with her at school, and give her way more attention than I could have if I had been working at NASA. At one point I thought I might strangle everyone, since Anna's school actually had off half a day on a Thursday, all day on a Friday, and Paul was busy all weekend. Love that child, but by Sunday evening I was ready for school to start again and holding back on being a raging lunatic mom. I kept the carpool going as normal, so I never slept in, although it was great not having to put on makeup or really get dressed before I had to head out the door. I slowed down to really read her school work with focus. I even actually read our mail. I didn't really clean out closets or organize stuff like I'd have liked to. I exercised some, but not as much as I could have. I didn't try new recipes. I just worked on the Grocery Station all day (and caught up on my CEU's for my EMT license that are due in Jan).
Man how noisy is my life when working full time? Pretty noisy. That's really one fast-paced career.
I did get out of the house with a fellow furlough coworker, and we watched the 3D version of the movie GRAVITY. Dear God, I had no idea what I was in for. And again, for so many reasons, it was a perfect furlough movie. But I am way too old for this kind of drama. It was really great, but hard to watch. It was an on-screen isolating movie about the worst possible things that could happen to an astronaut in space. Right out there: potentially every astronaut's worst fear (and this astronaut-wanna-be's) played out by Hollywood for the average movie-goer to watch. It probably had many different meanings for the average movie-goer than it did for us in the business of space. Regardless, in the end, it was a huge metaphor for rebirth. For Awakening. For facing the biggest fears and just saying, well what the Hell, let's do this . Don't think the message, particularly in its space theme, was lost on me.
Watching the Politics:
The more I read on the Congressional battles, the more I realized most Americans were feeling the same way I was. Appalled by leaders on both sides calling this a "fight" or a "battle to be won." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I'll spare my feelings on this, but I still place the blame on the Tea Party Crazies, and the inability for Speaker Boehner to get his party in line. It was refreshing to watch some GOP leaders come out and say that very thing as well. One day when Boehner is out of office, I'd like to see a solid interview with him where he tells the truth on why he let so much BS happen under his watch. It's frightening to see such small-minded government-haters get such a voice. They DO NOT represent even 1/10th of the American public and they'd rather burn down everything this country stands for with their anti-government messages of hate and destruction. Yet look, they collect a government paycheck! Shameful. I wonder if any one of them had a family member that was waiting to get in on an experimental cancer treatment protocol in these last 17 days, but couldn't because those FDA workers were at home wasting their talents? Probably not. It scares me that there are really people in this country who feel that life has treated them so unfairly that the government is such an easy outlet for them to focus their hate on. And most of them have been on the very social programs they are lobbying against. Never mind the good things that the Executive branch does for their lives everyday. Freaking COWARDS. And now that I'm back at work, this particular interview sums up my feelings. So thankful for the Daily Show during this embarrassing time for our nation: Jason Jones's fantastically edgy interview
Getting the Call Back To Work:
When I got the call to return to work immediately, my first reaction was, "But I have appointments and work to do!" But not long after that, my thoughts turned to my NASA teams, and the fact that I really wanted to be there with them when the doors opened again. And so we'll pick up where we left off at least until January when Congress will fight about the budget again.
Back at my office, I have new perspective that will actually benefit me at NASA.Turns out I am creative after all. I mean I've heard somewhere that EVERYONE is, but I was pretty sure I wasn't. The furlough was a period of growth outside of my comfort zone. Thank God I had the wisdom to recognize that and work with it, and I'm definitely taking it with me back to my day job. I hope other federal employees can take something back with them as they come back to work too.
This weekend I head to my high school reunion, right into the heart of extreme conservatism and Tea party fanatics. Where there's no middle ground for moderates like me. Where as a federal employee, I'm a topic of discussion given the latest political happenings. Usually I'm pretty tolerant of ignorant fools and their misguided political commentary and stupid comments pass. But at this point, it's going to take a lot more booze than the 3 freebies they're issuing at the door to prevent me from punching some idiot in the throat over a simple political statement I am going to disagree with. Maybe there's more room for growth there for me too?
JFK's Moon Speech given at Rice University 9/12/62:
President Pitzer, Mr. Vice President, Governor, Congressman Thomas, Senator Wiley, and Congressman Miller, Mr. Webb, Mr. Bell, scientists, distinguished guests, and ladies and gentlemen: I appreciate your president having made me an honorary visiting professor, and I will assure you that my first lecture will be very brief.
I am delighted to be here and I'm particularly delighted to be here on this occasion.
We meet at a college noted for knowledge, in a city noted for progress, in a state noted for strength, and we stand in need of all three, for we meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.
Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far outstrip our collective comprehension.
No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.
This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward--and so will space.
William Bradford, speaking in 1630 of the founding of the Plymouth Bay Colony, said that all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.
If this capsule history of our progress teaches us anything, it is that man, in his quest for knowledge and progress, is determined and cannot be deterred. The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time, and no nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space.
Those who came before us made certain that this country rode the first waves of the industrial revolution, the first waves of modern invention, and the first wave of nuclear power, and this generation does not intend to founder in the backwash of the coming age of space. We mean to be a part of it--we mean to lead it. For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace. We have vowed that we shall not see space filled with weapons of mass destruction, but with instruments of knowledge and understanding.
Yet the vows of this Nation can only be fulfilled if we in this Nation are first, and, therefore, we intend to be first. In short, our leadership in science and industry, our hopes for peace and security, our obligations to ourselves as well as others, all require us to make this effort, to solve these mysteries, to solve them for the good of all men, and to become the world's leading space-faring nation.
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. I do not say that we should or will go unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more than we go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding the fires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has made in extending his writ around this globe of ours.
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation many never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
It is for these reasons that I regard the decision last year to shift our efforts in space from low to high gear as among the most important decisions that will be made during my incumbency in the office of the Presidency.
In the last 24 hours we have seen facilities now being created for the greatest and most complex exploration in man's history. We have felt the ground shake and the air shattered by the testing of a Saturn C-1 booster rocket, many times as powerful as the Atlas which launched John Glenn, generating power equivalent to 10,000 automobiles with their accelerators on the floor. We have seen the site where five F-1 rocket engines, each one as powerful as all eight engines of the Saturn combined, will be clustered together to make the advanced Saturn missile, assembled in a new building to be built at Cape Canaveral as tall as a 48 story structure, as wide as a city block, and as long as two lengths of this field.
Within these last 19 months at least 45 satellites have circled the earth. Some 40 of them were made in the United States of America and they were far more sophisticated and supplied far more knowledge to the people of the world than those of the Soviet Union.
The Mariner spacecraft now on its way to Venus is the most intricate instrument in the history of space science. The accuracy of that shot is comparable to firing a missile from Cape Canaveral and dropping it in this stadium between the 40-yard lines.
Transit satellites are helping our ships at sea to steer a safer course. Tiros satellites have given us unprecedented warnings of hurricanes and storms, and will do the same for forest fires and icebergs.
We have had our failures, but so have others, even if they do not admit them. And they may be less public.
To be sure, we are behind, and will be behind for some time in manned flight. But we do not intend to stay behind, and in this decade, we shall make up and move ahead.
The growth of our science and education will be enriched by new knowledge of our universe and environment, by new techniques of learning and mapping and observation, by new tools and computers for industry, medicine, the home as well as the school. Technical institutions, such as Rice, will reap the harvest of these gains.
And finally, the space effort itself, while still in its infancy, has already created a great number of new companies, and tens of thousands of new jobs. Space and related industries are generating new demands in investment and skilled personnel, and this city and this state, and this region, will share greatly in this growth. What was once the furthest outpost on the old frontier of the West will be the furthest outpost on the new frontier of science and space. Houston, your city of Houston, with its Manned Spacecraft Center, will become the heart of a large scientific and engineering community. During the next 5 years the National Aeronautics and Space Administration expects to double the number of scientists and engineers in this area, to increase its outlays for salaries and expenses to $60 million a year; to invest some $200 million in plant and laboratory facilities; and to direct or contract for new space efforts over $1 billion from this center in this city.
To be sure, all this costs us all a good deal of money. This year's space budget is three times what it was in January 1961, and it is greater than the space budget of the previous eight years combined. That budget now stands at $5,400 million a year--a staggering sum, though somewhat less than we pay for cigarettes and cigars every year. Space expenditures will soon rise some more, from 40 cents per person per week to more than 50 cents a week for every man, woman and child in the United States, for we have given this program a high national priority--even though I realize that this is in some measure an act of faith and vision, for we do not now know what benefits await us. But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun--almost as hot as it is here today--and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out--then we must be bold.
I'm the one who is doing all the work, so we just want you to stay cool for a minute. [laughter]
However, I think we're going to do it, and I think that we must pay what needs to be paid. I don't think we ought to waste any money, but I think we ought to do the job. And this will be done in the decade of the Sixties. It may be done while some of you are still here at school at this college and university. It will be done during the terms of office of some of the people who sit here on this platform. But it will be done. And it will be done before the end of this decade.
And I am delighted that this university is playing a part in putting a man on the moon as part of a great national effort of the United States of America.
Many years ago the great British explorer George Mallory, who was to die on Mount Everest, was asked why did he want to climb it. He said, "Because it is there."
Well, space is there, and we're going to climb it, and the moon and the planets are there, and new hopes for knowledge and peace are there. And, therefore, as we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.
Thank you.
John F. Kennedy - September 12, 1962
