NASA’s latest mission – to inspire Aboriginal astronauts

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is running 41 missions, but its deputy director has an extra one: helping Aboriginal students along the path to becoming astronauts.

Last year NASA JPL hosted the first cohort of First Nations interns who went to Pasadena, California to study space science for 10 weeks, and last week the research institute visited Melbourne to hear about the interns’ experiences.

NASA JPL deputy director Larry D. James (left) and Professor Christopher Lawrence from Monash University.

“One of our missions is to inspire the next generation,” said Larry D. James, a retired lieutenant general with the US Air Force and now the deputy director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“And this is showing young men and women what they could be in the future – and they may never have realised that without this kind of experience.”

James visited Monash University to hear from the inaugural interns from the National Indigenous Space Agency and Australian Space Academy program, which includes Linden Beaumont, a 22-year-old Ngarrindjeri man and Bachelor of Computer Science student at Monash.

The internship was life changing, Beaumont said.

James and Lawrence with First Nations university students who went to NASA. From left: Tully Mahr, Ted Vanderfeen and Parmis Hassani. Far right: Linden Beaumont.

“I didn’t see what possibilities were out there and that they were achievable at all, so it really opened my eyes to the possibilities for what I could do,” he said.

Beaumont worked on coding for the Spacecraft Atmosphere Monitor, which ensures air is safe for International Space Station astronauts to breathe.

“I have worked hard for a while and when you work hard good things happen,” he said.

“Hopefully, if I get a job it will be at another cool space company.”

The JPL carries the motto “dare mighty things”, and continuing that ambition, the internship program was initiated by National Indigenous Space Agency lead Christopher Lawrence, a Wadjak/Ballardong Noongar man and Monash University associate dean (Indigenous).

Lawrence’s goal is to send Aboriginal students studying STEM (science, engineering, technology and mathematics) into space.

“Going to NASA and JPL is one of those incentives and one of those goals who most students studying those fields want to go,” he said.

Andy Thomas and Paul Scully-Power are Australia’s most famous astronauts, while recently, Meganne Christian and Katherine Bennell-Pegg have trained with the European Space Agency in preparation to be astronauts. Astronaut qualifications can include jet aircraft training or qualifications in a STEM field.

NASA’s current missions include the Mars Sample Return, which aims to bring back the first samples from another planet, but James said the agency was very focused on Earth.

“You can really only measure what is going on in our oceans from space, with our radar satellites,” he said.

The agency’s programs monitor aspects of the planet including changes in gravity, underground aquifers in California and ice sheets in Greenland.

“All these skills lend themselves to space research but also Earth sciences … so we can know what is going on our own planet and have a place to live,” Lawrence said.

James said the Indigenous internship program was part of Australia’s long space tradition.

“Australia has been incredible partners for NASA and JPL, really, since the ’60s because we instantiated the Deep Space Network here at Canberra, which allows us to communicate with our missions out at Mars, or out at the moon or out at Jupiter.

“This is one of three sites: we [also] have one in Madrid [and] we have one in California. It is an incredibly important site for us to get the data back.”

James said while people looked back fondly on the Apollo era, this was the golden age of space.

“Now with the ability to go into space fairly cheaply, with commercial rockets like SpaceX, it really is a golden age. Many people can play in this arena. And many visions can play in this arena. Students coming into this field will have an incredible career,” he said.

“So we really do look forward to partnering with Australia, partnering with Monash University, partnering with the Indigenous program, and just inspiring people to do these incredible things that [are] ultimately benefiting humanity.”

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