Alice Carruth (7:15)

Hey there, Maria. I'm absolutely buzzing about the Resilience mission and bravo to the team around the media coverage leading up to it. Now, I have a few other stories that I'm also buzzing about today. We've included links to them in our show notes along with the original sources for all the other stories you've mentioned. The first is that ETA Space has managed to store large amounts of cryogenic gases for 18 months on the ground with no losses, and now plans to take its expertise to space to establish a cryogenic propellant depot in leo. Pretty impressive. And the other about the Roman Space Telescope, which has just passed some major shake tests on its core components.

Maria Varmazes (7:49)

That is all very neat. Thank you, Alice. And a reminder that all of those links and more can be found on our website, space.n2k.com hey, T minus crew, if your business is looking to grow your voice in the industry, expand the reach of your thought leadership or recruit talent, T minus can help. We'd love to hear from you. Send us an email@space2k.com or send us a note through our website or so we can connect about building a program to meet your goals.

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Maria Varmazes (9:52)

Our guest today is Dr. Andy Aldrin. Andy is an aerospace industry legend with stints at Boeing, Lockheed Martin and ula. And he is currently the executive director for space programs at Embry Riddle Worldwide. And, and if his name rings a bell, yes, he is also the son of legendary moonwalker Buzz Aldrin. Andy joined me to discuss the Aldrin Family Foundation's work.

Dr. Andy Aldrin (10:17)

My name is Andy Aldrin. I am the president of the Aldrin Family Foundation. I am also the executive director of space programs for Embry Riddle University Worldwide.

Maria Varmazes (10:31)

Thank you so much for joining me, Andy. I really do appreciate it. And I know that the Aldrin Family foundation has done number of amazing things over its existence. And you also are celebrating a big award that you all just won from the state of Texas. I'm getting ahead of myself. I would love if you could tell me a bit about the Aldrin Family foundation just to start.

Dr. Andy Aldrin (10:50)

Yeah. So the foundation started, I GUESS it's almost 10 years ago now. Well, it is 10 years ago in 2015. And it was sort of born out of my dad's passion for getting the excitement of space out to kids that didn't really get involved in space very much. So he would go out and visit kids in underserved schools and, and it was really cool. He would, he'd go out there, he'd say something inspirational, the kids would get really happy about it. And then we actually came across at a visit that he had at National Geographic, the National Geographic Society, they had this huge map of Africa. And at the time, my dad was really passionate about Mars and he said we need one of these for Mars. And so I got in touch with a friend, Jim Green, who was running the planetary division at NASA. And we came up with a very colorful rendition of Mars that actually depicted the altitude. And so then. And at the time I was working full time, I think it was. I think actually I was working at 2015. I actually would have just moved to Florida Tech. I think maybe, maybe this started a little bit earlier than 2015. Anyway, so I was working full time, but I kind of. We came across this. And so dad would go out to schools and they'd unroll the map and kids would jump up and down on the map and they'd leave the map there. And then that was kind of it. And so I got involved with the foundation and we started building a curriculum for this. First we worked with NASA, and then we worked with Purdue University. And so we came up with some really interesting curriculum. And over time we focused more and more on just really taking the excitement of space and bringing it into the classroom in ways that teachers can use it. And so we developed a detailed curricula looking at the moon and Mars. And so then more recently, we've come up with what we call the S Cube program, which is student satellites in space. And this is really incredible because what we're doing now is not only bringing the excitement of space into the classroom, but literally letting students participate in building a spacecraft, which is just kind of incredibly cool. And so it's a two year program, maybe three years in some cases, but the idea is we use the excitement of a satellite to teach them about some kind of challenging technical subjects. They learn how to do coding, they learn how to do software, they learn a little bit about space science and the whole thing. And it's really a fascinating program. Two years out, the students will come out having worked in a really complex organizational environment and having built a spacecraft. And in the case of the program we're going to be starting in Texas, we're actually going to fly spacecraft. And so that's just incredibly cool if you think about it. What a resume that a kid's going to come out with, having worked on a complex organization, developed the soft skills, developed technically building a satellite. And no offense to our good friends at Lego, but that's a whole lot better than, I think, you know, sort of smashing robots into each other along the way. We'll also get certifications, industry and state certifications, and we'll be offering the opportunity for them to also take courses at a university, Embry Riddle University, to take, to actually do dual enrollment. And so really, really exciting program. We've operated this now in Las Vegas at Durango High School, and we've gone through our first year at the End of the first year, you fly a balloon with a payload on it, sort of mini satellite. And then at the end of the second year, you actually build a real satellite. And then we fly it as we get opportunities for Texas. We already have launch opportunities lined up with nanoracks and Voyager Space. Anyway, so it's really, really exciting. We're just super excited to get this out.

Maria Varmazes (15:11)

I can tell by your enthusiasm. And I can tell, I mean, given your expertise and your incredible career, this has got to be very rewarding for you personally, given, I mean, the countless students and people that you must have mentored. You must be able to see sort of the greater path here from getting kids into this STEM pipeline, into the career that would follow.

Dr. Andy Aldrin (15:30)

Yeah, I mean, it's just, you know, it's. It's really about starting to get kids curious and realizing what they can do. And, you know, when my dad went to the moon, there were two people went to the moon. Mike Collins flew around and everybody else watched. A few hundred thousand people actually worked on it, but everyone else was watching. And today it's just so exciting because you can actually participate in building a satellite. And so I think kids today are the luckiest kids ever. Space is more exciting than it's ever been. And so this is just to be part of this whole thing is incredibly cool.

Maria Varmazes (16:09)

Yeah, I can absolutely imagine. And specifically to talk about the grant from the Texas Space Commission, the kids are actually going to be launching. They have the ability to. Okay, that's.

Dr. Andy Aldrin (16:20)

So the way it'll work is we spread the program out into maybe as many as 20 or 30 schools. And then they'll all have the opportunity to build essentially a mock up of a satellite, an engineering model of the satellite, and then they'll compete to actually see who gets the launch opportunity. And so we're going to be spreading. It's not just a single class that's going to be doing this. There are going to be hundreds of kids that are going to be participating in it. And every year we will launch a satellite up. It'll go up to the space station and then actually be ejected out of the space station. So it's not, you know, we're trying to gain, to scale it as much as we possibly can.

Maria Varmazes (17:05)

Yeah, I was gonna say, and I know this award just came in and I feel a little greedy asking, you know, the long term vision, because this is quite a thing to be accomplishing on its own, but I imagine this is maybe a springboard for something else after.

Dr. Andy Aldrin (17:17)

Well, the longer term vision is to get these programs into every state and have, you know, as a regular opportunity, kids in any school, particularly underserved kids in schools, will have the opportunity to participate in a space program. We probably can't afford to get every school launching a satellite. Maybe we can put them all on a starship or something like that. I don't know, but wouldn't that be great? The idea is to spread as much space around a little bit of space in every classroom.

Maria Varmazes (17:46)

That would be incredible. What a beautiful vision that is. Is there anything you want people to know about, maybe how they can find out more about their school or any call to action that you want to let people know about, about your, your foundation or about this specific effort?

Dr. Andy Aldrin (18:00)

Well, they can. They're certainly welcome to visit our website, which is aldrinfoundation.org we are just, you know, right now it's, I feel sort of like the dog that caught the car. And so we're, you know, we're trying to chew on the, on the hubcap and figure out what exactly how our program plan is going to work out. So I think what the key is going to be to stay tuned and I think we're going to have lots of really exciting information there and. Yeah, stay tuned.

Maria Varmazes (18:32)

All right. We will absolutely do that. Anything else you want to add or mention before we close out today? I'm just sort of giving you a blank slate. Anything at all that you wanted to close out on.

Dr. Andy Aldrin (18:41)

So, yeah, I guess the other thing I wanted to mention is my other day job as executive director of space programs at Embry Riddle, where we're sort of taking it up a level. This is a graduate education, but we have, we have over a thousand students now in that program in the space of three years. And so there's tremendous interest in getting, getting involved in space and getting jobs in space. So space is a place where you can all work. And I think it's. There's not, you know, there are other programs similar to what we're doing at Embry Riddle, but I'd certainly invite them to take a look at what we're doing at Embry Riddle because it's a fabulous program and I get excited when I see kids getting great jobs. Not kids. Most of these people are sort of young adults, maybe so not so young adults in some cases. But they're out there and they're getting great jobs and they can participate in space at really the most exciting time ever.

Maria Varmazes (19:49)

We'll be right back.

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Maria Varmazes (20:26)

Welcome back. Canada has lost a trailblazer. Marc Garneau, the nation's first astronaut and a respected public servant, passed away yesterday June 4th at the age of 76 after a brief illness. Garneau's journey to the stars began with a degree in engineering physics from the Royal Military College of Canada, Followed by a PhD in electrical engineering from Imperial College London. He served as a Royal Canadian Navy officer before being selected in 1983 as one of Canada's first astronauts. On October 5, 1984, he made history aboard the space shuttle Challenger, becoming the first Canadian in space. He flew two more missions, STS 77 in 1996 and STS 97 in 2000, spending a total of over 29 days in orbit. Garneau later led the Canadian Space agency from 2001 to 2005 and then transitioned into politics. He served as a Liberal Member of Parliament from 2008 to 2023, holding key roles including Minister of Transport and Minister of Foreign affairs under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Throughout his life, Garneau remained a passionate advocate for science, exploration and environmental stewardship. Reflecting on his space flights, he once said, when you see that thin atmosphere and realize we're filling it with greenhouse gases and pollutants, the you realize, what are we doing? So today let's honor this amazing Earthling and Canadian about thinking about our home planet and doing our own little bit to keep it going long after we depart. That's it for T minus for June 5, 2025, brought to you by N2K CyberWire for additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes@space.n2k.com we're privileged that N2K and podcasts like T Minus are part of the daily routine of many of the most influential leaders and operators in the public and private sector, from the Fortune 500 to many of the world's preeminent intelligence and law enforcement agencies. N2K Senior Producer is Alice Carruth. Our producer is Liz Stokes. We are mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Ivan. Peter Kilby is our publisher and I'm your host, Maria varmazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. T minus.

Dave (23:21)

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