JSC’s Human Spaceflight Workshop for Creative Individuals

Purpose: Establish a quarterly workshop where writers, directors, actors and others in the entertainment

industry can spend a day at JSC to better understand the inner workings of Human Spaceflight so that the

author/director/actor of the next The Martian will have just a hint more of realism/factual/honest portrayal.

What is the Workshop: Similar to the celebrity tours that happen at JSC this would be a one day tour of

facilities, talking with individuals but also helping educate the attendees on what it takes to operate a space

station, build a spacecraft, make a Journey to Mars etc. The workshop briefings would focus on the design

considerations, operational concepts and stories from astronauts about their experiences living on the station

or flying these missions. The briefings cover the topics from a perspective that will help the attendees go

beyond the usual factoids but delve into areas that would help the writer craft a better story, an animator/cgi

artist design the scene more lifelike or an actor realize the character more three dimensionally. We aren’t trying

to rewrite their scripts or edit their movies, but just by providing that day around JSC it might help them portray

Human Spaceflight in such a manner that it raises awareness and interest as well as advocacy.

Potential Topics for a Day of workshop:

These are meant to be upbeat short informative sessions not long deep dives into the hardware nuances of

human space flight. The briefings focus on the more the considerations of what it takes to build it, operate it

from the ground or live in it in space so that those nuggets can then possibly make their way into the story or

characterization.

● JSC Overview 8:30 am - 30 minutes on the role of JSC in the larger puzzle that is exploration

● Exploration/Journey to Mars 9:00 am - 30 minutes on the plans for current (ISS), near term (Orion) and

future goals of boots on Mars focusing on the design considerations, and the operational concepts.

● What it takes to Work in Mission Control 9:30 am - 30 minutes of flight controllers and flight directors

talking about the roles in MCC, how things have evolved over time and what the future holds.

● Tour of MCC 10:00 - 1 hr (20 - Apollo, 20 - FCR-1, 20 - White FCR) In the White FCR have the

attendees sit with flight controllers flight following the ISS so they can see real time what it is like

without disturbing the real time ops in FCR-1.

● What to Eat in Space 11:00 - 30 minute tour of the Space Food Lab and briefing on longer term plans

for food for a Mars mission

● Lunch with JSC 11:30 am - 1 hour eat and talk with folks from around JSC to get that real life

experience stories

● How to live in Space 12:30 pm - 30 minutes on the space physiology aspects of exploration

● What it takes to Be an Astronaut 1:00 pm - 30 minutes Q&A with astronauts to understand the

personalities and experiences of spaceflight.

● Space Station overview and Tour 1:30 pm - 1 hour tour through the B9 mockups with astronaut(s) to

continue the discussion of what it is like to live in space as well as understand the ISS

● Rovers, and Robots 2:30 pm - 1 hour on why humanoid robots, the future of humanoid robots, rover

demonstrations and future needs.

● Habs and Landers 3:30 pm - 1 hour on current HERA and Morpheus Lander concepts and how they

feed forward into future exploration concepts, what it is like to live in the HERA and why build Morpheus

type lander.

● Wrap Up 4:30 pm - 30 minutes in the collaboration center to talk through what they got out of the day if

there are any requests for mentors/consultants for their projects going forward.

● End of Workshop 5:00 pm

Risk: Perception NASA is wasting time and effort on courting celebrities, but since we already do celebrity

engagement and VIP tours this is being efficient by front loading some of those experiences/visits when a

production is in the early stages as a more informative tour than just the gee whiz type PR tours that typically

happen on the back end.While no book, movie, tv show or painting is going to change space policy the ability

to help these creators align with reality of space exploration where it makes sense might inspire the next

generation of employees as well as energize the current workforce.

Hurdles: Getting the word out that this workshop is available, while I don’t suggest we take out ad space in

Variety or THR, leveraging our celebrity and studio contacts we can help drum up interest in the workshop and

raise awareness within the WGA, DGA and SGA that this opportunity is available for their future products.

Getting folks to come to JSC at their own expense might be a hurdle, but the benefit that the workshop would

provide to their script, concepts, characterization might be worth it in the long run and if the workshops

schedule is published far enough in advance plans could be made to minimize the cost.

Workforce: It will require probably more personnel than a usual celebrity tour, but these would be planned on

a regular quarterly basis so scheduling the correct assets should not be an issue except for real time

emergency situations that are always beyond our control. Also by engaging more of the workforce there is the

potential to improve the workforce morale as the folks get a chance to tell their stories, share their experiences

and engage with the attendees instead of the stealth like way some celebrity tours are handled today.