Lunch with Astronaut Winston Scott

Time to return to blogging! Life has been crazy on my end and I thank you all for your patience as I return to my normal routine.

Today I had the pleasure of eating lunch with astronaut Winston Scott (STS-72 and STS-87), now Senior Vice President for External Relations and Economic Development at my undergraduate alma mater university, Florida Institute of Technology. The event was hosted by the Cocoa Beach Chamber of Commerce and the Citizens for Space Exploration.

It had been a bit over a year since I last chatted with Winston. He and I did business together in early 2014 when we organized a partnership and workshop between my previous employer CASIS and Florida Tech. It was great to catch up with him over lunch. He excitedly told me of the latest happenings with his office and astronaut Buzz Aldrin's ShareSpace Foundation.

Winston Scott - May 5, 2015

Winston's speech to the small luncheon audience was engaging. He was not at all afraid to share his opinions, though he wanted to be clear that they were his opinions and he encouraged open discussion of different opinions. His goal was to give his philosophical perspective and listen to our perspective.

His first point is that space exploration is not an option. The United States is a top country because our technology is among the best in the world, largely because of the space program. The U.S. must maintain leadership in space exploration or the rest of our country will fall behind – our technology, our infrastructure, our communications, our military, everything. Space is an imperative, not a luxury.

He expressed concern that the U.S. has lost its ability to put astronauts into space and we're now “playing junior varsity.” We must regain our capability of putting humans in space and lead, he stressed. He stressed that we indeed are in a space race with Russia and China. We must regain our ability to put humans into space to keep our technological prowess.

Winston points to the lack of passionate government leadership as the biggest hurdle. Our leaders understand space intellectually but they aren't passionate. Corporate training tells our leaders to be logical, not passionate or emotional. But he thinks the opposite is needed: we need to be passionate. “Our country isn't passionate about space or about anything except special media, the latest tweet,” he poked as I tweeted his words.

The audience question and answer session was diverse. The first asked whether robots can replace astronauts and whether human settlement of space should be a goal. Winston responded that we need to send people to space because that's who we are. We were born to explore. He agreed that colonization is a good end result.

When asked about whether Mars should be the goal of human space exploration, Winston took a different approach. The goal is constant expansion, he said. Mars is the current goal but shouldn't be the ultimate goal. We need to explore beyond Mars. His opinion is that we need to return to the Moon to set up a colony, then explore Mars, then set a new boundary beyond.

The next question asked him to explore the role between the government space programs and private industry. Winston insisted that both are needed. Business people make space travel affordable and available to more people and companies. But we also need a strong government to do the ground-breaking, expensive stuff. But Winston expressed concerns that NASA is currently not strong nor focused. The commercial side of the space industry is is passionate, he said, but he doesn't see the same passion in government leadership.

The topic turned to NASA's current human space exploration efforts with the Orion crew capsule. In some ways, Orion is a step backwards in philosophy, Winston argued. NASA is designing something without knowing what to do with it. Citizens for Space Exploration organizer and Lockheed Martin employee Joe Mayer disagreed, giving a passionate defense of Orion. If we had waited for a clear direction, we'd be years behind, Joe insisted. Better to do it this way than not to do anything. Winston seemed pleased with the discussion and agreed that leadership is space is severely lacking.

A college student asked his opinion on a one-way trip to Mars. “I'm not a fan of one way trip to anywhere,” Winston responded. He argued that we're not kamikazes and that suicide missions are against our values.

I asked Winston what he thought about Florida's role in the new and evolving space industry. “We can't rest on our laurels,” he responded. Commercial industry will launch to space wherever is economically advantageous to do so. We in Florida must look for new ways to do space business and adapt as it changes.

Winston wrapped up by giving advice to students: don't limit yourselves to one activity and don't pidgin hole yourself. If you want to be two different things, be both. Follow your passion! Thank you, Winston, for a great luncheon talk.

Winston Scott & Me - May 5, 2015