A couple weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Dr. Michael Griffin, former NASA administrator. Mike Griffin is a current professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAHuntsville) and a part of the RCSP team. He was so nice to talk to and it was very interesting to listen to him talk about his experience with NASA and his current role at UAHuntsville.

It was very inspiring to hear him talk about a book he had when he was a kid called A Child’s Book of Stars. Mike credits this book to how he became interested in Space. The most interesting thing about the book is that it actually flew in Space! The crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery offered to fly a momento of Mike’s during their flight and the book flew in Space during the STS-114 mission. After the book returned from Space, Mike had it framed with a signed picture of the crew and certificate of authenticity and now it is displayed outside his office at UAHuntsville.

This is a picture of Mike's A Child's Book of Stars.

I also enjoyed talking to Mike about his role at UAHuntsville. He left NASA in 2009 and he had his pick of schools and organizations to work for. It is really cool that he ended up choosing UAHuntsville instead of other Ivy League or big name universities. Mike says he thought he could actually help out at UAHuntsville more than at other larger universities. To me, that was very refreshing to hear. He currently teaches at UAHuntsville and wants to establish a new center for systems and engineering research. He describes his role at UAHuntsville as a combination of teaching, research, and public outreach. I am a current MBA student at UAHuntsville,so it makes me very proud to know that my college was chosen by someone with his experience to continue his career.

Mike and Sara at the Shelby Center on the Campus of UAHuntsville.

During our interview I asked Mike what he felt was the best business case for going to the Moon. He had a very interesting answer to this. He said he feels that we first have to make the investment to see what the Moon has to offer. Mike informed me that humankind has less than one man-month on the Moon in a few small areas close to the equator. Mike said that we do not know yet what the best business case is for the Moon. For now the business case is we should make the investment! He believes we need to leave it as a set of options for our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren. This was very inspiring to me to think about the future of our kids being in our hands and the fact that we owe it to them to find out more about the Moon now!

To see my interviews with Mike, go to http://www.rocketcityspacepioneers.com/space/rcsp-video-gallery.

Getting to meet motivating people like Mike is why I truly enjoy being a part of the Dynetics marketing team. The GLXP project has given me an opportunity to learn more about Space, a very important business area for Dynetics. I have also enjoyed getting involved with social media for marketing the RCSP. Who wouldn’t want to use Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook as a part of their job? Social media is the future of communications and marketing, and it is very important and interesting to learn more about it. I am very grateful for the experience I am getting, and I cannot wait to see what great things will come from the RCSP and the Google Lunar X Prize Competition!

Tune in next week for Part 2 of Team Leader Tim Pickens’ three-part series on Rovers, Landers, and Moonscapes.

By Sara Price
Marketing Communications
Dynetics