Loretta Whitesides
Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides is a Founder Astronaut at Virgin Galactic, mother of two, wife to George T. Whitesides, and author of The New Right Stuff: Using Space to Bring out the Best in You. Loretta studied astrobiology at Stanford and Caltech, did research on plant life in the Canadian Arctic with NASA, dove to the bottom of the ocean with Titanic Director James Cameron, and has floated weightless hundreds of times as a Flight Director for Zero Gravity Corporation. She and her husband are the Co-Creators of Yuri's Night, the annual Worldwide Space Party celebrating the dual Russian and U.S. space anniversaries on April 12. She currently teaches leadership and personal development for the space community through her SpaceKind Training Program which evolved from the New Right Stuff training program she led at Virgin Galactic for five years.
3 words to describe Nature?
Elegant. Closed-loop. Soul-filling
3 things Nature taught you?
Trees are incredibly generous
You don't need to "waste" anything
We need natural systems to thrive
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Redwood forests
On a rock next to a mountain stream
On a mountain looking down on a fog bank
When you look at the OCEAN, it makes you feel...?
Fragile, insignificant, held (I believe the ocean holds are memories)
When you see a FOREST, it makes you feel...?
Calm, grounded, loved
When you see a VOLCANO, it makes you feel...?
Primal, powerful, grateful
When you see a SUNRISE or SUNSET, it makes you feel...?
Blessed, full-hearted, quiet
When you hear THUNDER, it makes you feel...? *
Excited, powerful, expansive
When you hear the WIND HOWLING, it makes you feel…?
Connected to my friend Andrew Hopping who loves the wind, hunkered down, humbled
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Mountains and forests
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
When I was about 14, our girl's group at my summer camp was challenged to do a 24 solo- as though we were lost during a hike- just shorts and a t-shirt in Northern California. It was pretty demanding, alone, cold, hungry, but I survived and was SO PROUD of myself! I always push others to let kids do things that are hard and scary so they can have that experience that they can do more than they think.
Joel Sercel
Dr. Joel Sercel is the CTO and CEO of Trans Astronautica Corporation. TransAstra is a NewSpace company dedicated to accelerating the process of human exploration and industrialization of cislunar space and near Earth asteroids. Funded by a combination of private sector investment plus NASA grants and contracts, TransAstra is building the technology to provide in-space transportation and related services with a fleet of reusable space tugs supplied by propellant derived from asteroid and lunar resources.
Dr. Sercel has over 30 years of NASA, industrial, other government agency, and academic experience and education all of which is directly related to space technology development and innovation. Sercel’s professional experience includes a 14 year career at JPL; 12 years teaching, researching, and advising graduate students at Caltech in the area of space systems engineering; two years as a senior government official serving as the Chief Systems engineer of a $22B Air Force communications satellite network (TSAT) leading a team of 122 systems engineers and several years as a private technology and management consultant
Joel conceived and initiated the NSTAR project (the first deep space solar electric propulsion system) and served as the first Principal Technologist of the NSTAR project. He presently has patents pending in the area of space resources technology and is known as the inventor of Optical Mining™, a practical method for extracting the ingredients in rocket propellant from asteroids.
Dr. Sercel is a five time NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) Fellowship awardee.
3 words to describe Nature?
Nature. Includes. Everything
3 things Nature taught you?
While we will never understand everything about nature, we have learned enough to know that nature follows laws that are understandable to the mind of Man.
When you discover a truth about the universe, it unlocks other truths and they all fit together.
When scientists think they have a mature theory that they understand, they are in for a big surprise.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
A kelp forest in the Channel islands
Looking across the Sierras at night at a thunderstorm on the next mountain
The night sky in the Arizona desert on a clear day
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?
Peace
When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?
Connected
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?
Wonder
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…?
The flow of time
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?
Lucky
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…?
Small
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
One part each, no preference. Love them all
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
As I am part of nature, that would be a 10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
The Milky Way galaxy spread across the night sky and the realization of the immensity of it all and the potential for an infinite future for humanity and our progeny coupled with a sense of awe that we exist.
http://https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLijoedlE2A
