Dare to Explore: Recent Episodes
Space Camp Explorers Club
Dare to Explore is a podcast from the Space Camp Explorers Club featuring interviews with friends of the Rocket Center, Space Camp Alumni, engineers, scientists, and explorers of all types.
May of 2023 was the fiftieth anniversary of the launch of Skylab. The US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, is celebrating with the Summer of Skylab – a series of presentations, educational panels, and celebrity events taking place through November. This special episode features retired NASA engineer Kenny Mitchell. Mitchell worked at the Marshall Space Flight Center on the development of the Saturn V rocket and developed Environmental Control and Life Support Systems for Skylab.
Lt. Col. Burke Hare was a U.S. Air Force space and missile operator whose career has included overseeing the maintenance and operations of ICBMs and improvements made to the GPS satellite system. He is a Space Camp Hall of Fame member and is currently Program Manager Space Operations with the Space Development Agency at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville Alabama.
Chris Vrenna is a musician, producer, engineer, programmer, and songwriter best known as the drummer for Nine Inch Nails. He’s played with Marilyn Manson, Guns and Roses, Smashing Pumpkins, and more, and he’s composed music for video games in the Quake, Doom, Sims, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Call of Duty game series. Today, he teaches music technology and is on the board of directors for the US Space and Rocket Center Foundation.
Penny Pettigrew is a payload communications manager at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, communicating with astronauts conducting scientific experiments aboard the International Space Station. She is a Space Camp alumni and a member of the Space Camp Hall of Fame.
Robert Pearlman is a space historian and the founder and editor of the website collectSPACE. He was the director of communications and the marketing director for Space Adventures, the first space tourism company to send private individuals to the ISS. Robert is a Space Camp Hall of Fame member and a contributing writer to Space.com.
Katie Berryhill is former intelligence officer for the United States Air Force. Today, she is an astronomy professor at multiple colleges and the CEO of Berryhill Computer Forensics, Incorporated. She is a Space Camp alumni, a science education researcher, and a NASA Solar System Ambassador.
Dr. Andrea Hanson is a bioastronautics and microgravity science aerospace engineer. She is currently working at NASA Johnson Space Center on Crew Health and Performance for the Human Landing System (HLS). She is a Space Camp alumni, Space Camp Hall of Fame member, and serves on the Space Camp Alumni Advancement Board.
David Hitt is a contractor Communications Strategist with Marshall Space Flight Center's Office of Strategic Analysis and Communication. He began his career as a small town newspaper editor before joining NASA's Space Launch System as Communication Strategist. David is also the author of Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story and Bold They Rise: The Space Shuttle Early Years.
Marcia Lindstrom leads the Strategic Communications Team for NASA's Space Launch System, the rocket that will take humans to the Moon and eventually to Mars. In the past, she has served as manager for the External Relations Office at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and as Director of Operations for Space Camp.
Jim Allan is the accessibility coordinator for the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. He served as their webmaster and as an assistive technology specialist. He has been coordinating and bringing Texas students to SCIVIS (Space Camp for Interested Visually Impaired Students) for more than twenty years, and serves as a technical expert for the program. Jim's expertise supported Space Camp's development of mission software usable by blind and visibly impaired students.
Peter Marquez is the Head of Space Policy at Amazon Web Services. He has consulted on television shows like "Space Force" as a space consultant, Director of Space Policy on the National Security Council, and served at Planetary Resources, Inc. as the Vice President for Global Engagement. His unique view of the space industry comes from a career of space policy and understanding the interconnected issues that come with advancing exploration.
Keri Bean is a systems engineer for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She is a deputy lead Rover Planner on the Curiosity rover. She is also a Helicopter Integration Engineer for the Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter currently on Mars.
Margrit von Braun is an environmental engineer specializing in hazardous waste management and risk assessment. Her father was Dr. Wernher von Braun, the first director of the Marshall Space Flight Center and led the development of the Saturn V rocket that sent the Apollo astronauts to the moon. Margrit was one of the first women to join the University of Idaho College of Engineering faculty in 1980, and served as their Dean of the College of Graduate Studies. She founded an environmental engineering company with her husband that focused on remediation of hazardous waste sites, and in retirement, they started an international non-profit to assist communities in poor countries reduce environmental exposures and chemical disease.
Derek Hodgins is an aerospace engineer and member of the Strategy and Business Development team for Lockheed Martin's Lunar Exploration Campaigns. He has served as the Director of Business Development for Human Exploration at Northrop Grumman, as a Spaceflight and Technology Lead at NASA, and was a Flight Controller for Space Shuttle Mission Control.
Dan Oates is a member of the Space Camp Hall of Fame and a retired teacher from the West Virginia School for the Blind. For thirty years, Dan has been helping thousands of visually impaired and blind students and teachers experience Space Camp through a program called SCIVIS - Space Camp for Interested Visually Impaired Students. In the past, he has served as Education Program Manager for Space Camp, and is currently the group coordinator for SCIVIS.
Mandy Vaughn is the founder and past president and CEO of VOX Space, a subsidiary of Virgin Orbit providing satellite launch services to the US government and allied nations. She is an Air Force veteran who served as Chair of the Workforce Development efforts for the National Security Space Association and is currently a member of NASA's National Space Council User's Advisory Group.
Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger is a retired high school earth science and astronomy teacher. In 2004, she was selected as an Educator Mission Specialist by NASA, and flew on STS 131 Discovery to resupply the International Space Station. She is the first Space Camp alumni to go to space.
Husband and wife duo Michael and Denise Okuda have worked in science fiction television for more than three decades as graphic designers, artists and technical consultants. Together, they have worked on six Star Trek films, as well as Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise, even writing the Star Trek Encyclopedia. Michael has designed several NASA mission patches, and are currently consultants for the Netflix series Space Force and the Apple TV series For All Mankind.
Susie Martínez is an additive manufacturing engineer for NASA at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. She received her Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kentucky in 2019. Calling herself a "STEMinist," Susie has more than 64,000 followers on Instagram, where she uses her platform to encourage and mentor women in pursuing science and engineering careers.
Suzanne Saltz is a First Assistant Director and Director on the hit television program NCIS Los Angeles. She’s worked on shows like Six Feet Under, Bones and Pushing Daisies. Though she ended up in Hollywood, Suzanne began her journey dreaming of space, having attended Space Camp as a teenager. Today, she’s also on the Space Camp Alumni board of directors.
Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides is an alumni of Space Camp and author of The New Right Stuff: Using Space to Bring Out the Best in You. Co-founder of global space party Yuri’s Night, Whitesides is a Founder Astronaut with Virgin Galactic and creator of SpaceKind leadership training.
Kenny Mitchell is a retired NASA engineer of 40 years. Mitchell worked at the Marshall Space Flight Center on the development of the Saturn V rocket that took man to the moon in 1969 and developed Environmental Control and Life Support Systems for Skylab and the International Space Station.
Homer Hickam is a former NASA aerospace engineer, Vietnam veteran, and acclaimed author of 19 books. The 1999 film October Sky was based on his memoir, Rocket Boys. Hickam was responsible for training astronauts for Spacelab and the Hubble Space Telescope launch and repair, as well as serving as payload training manager for the International Space Station.