Mike Sander Interview
MC: During the Cold War, and subsequent to it, manned exploration of space was considered valuable in that it inspired the nation’s youth to pursue science and space exploration as career choices. That’s one of the arguments for continuing the manned space program. Now, with so much technology dominating our culture through any number of devices, do robotic systems designed to explore space serve that purpose? I know it’s not your job to inspire our youth, but do you have any thoughts on this?
MS: Well, actually, I think JPL and I think all the centers at NASA take very very seriously not only the opportunity but, I would say, the mandate to reach out to both the local community as far as their resources allow them to engage and show them what’s being done with their dollars and what are the kinds of things that are being uncovered and discovered. I know that JPL pays an awful lot of attention to our websites to make sure that the most current returns from all over the solar system are available to the public. There’s a whole community of museums that are tied into JPL and some of the other NASA centers so that when there’s really exciting happening, they can project screens for when the public wants to attend those events. The centers also hold open houses. JPL has somewhere usually between thirty and forty thousand people show up at an open house. I personally am part of that because it is so much fun to see how excited the kids are. They lie down and they have model Rovers that roll over them and to hear them get excited about it, see them wander around and talk to various JPLers about careers. It’s really a very high energy event – it pumps me up for about a year to participate in events like this. That happens at other NASA centers as well so I think the agency takes very seriously the notion that part of its mandate, part of it has to do, is convey its excitement of exploration, of discovery and science and complex engineering to the next generation.”
MC: Do we in the media or the public miss anything when we look at JPL and NASA?
MS: Exploring space turns out to be a hard thing to do. We’ve worked really really hard to make all these missions very successful. What you see are 98% successes and very few outright failures or problems. It gives the impression of being easy. But in fact it isn’t easy; it’s extremely difficult. We selectively take on things that are very hard to do. That’s what JPL’s job is and that’s what the agency’s job is. And in taking on these very hard things to do, I think we create both the need for highly educated, highly motivated people and we produce technologies and capabilities that I think really enrich the public and the data and view of our solar system, the view of our planet, the view of the universe that comes out of these missions. I think it is extremely exciting and it’s totally available to everyone. All they have to do is hit a website.
