The Wookiee and the Moonwalker

This column ran April 1, 2004:
It must have been April Fools Day, but it wasn’t.It was real, or should I say, surreal.On Tuesday, Day News Editor Travis Pryor and I made our annual trek to Colorado Springs to attend the National Space Symposium. The symposium — now in its 20th year — is going on this week and brings together the who’s who in the world of space. We rubbed elbows with engineers and astronauts, listened to policy makers and captains of industry and schmoozed with the people behind the technology that is orbiting the earth and roving on Mars.At one point, we came out of a speech by Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin — the second man to walk on the moon — and I stopped Travis to borrow his cell phone. I was scheduled to do a phone interview with Peter Mayhew — the actor best known the world around as Chewbacca in the Star Wars movies.Mayhew will be appearing in Denver at Starfest on April 16-18.After talking to the 7-foot, 3-inch Wookiee — who, by the way, says (insert friendly grunting and growling sounds here) to all his fans in Colorado — we returned to the exhibit hall. There we met Winston Scott, who flew on two space shuttle missions. He is now the executive director of the Florida Space Authority. He was also a spacewalker who helped test equipment used to start construction of the International Space Station.Within the span of an hour, I had direct contact with a moonwalker, spacewalker and a Wookiee, oh my! That just doesn’t happen every day on this job, trust me.It was interesting to hear from the people involved with the president’s Moon, Mars and Beyond program. The stars may be aligned for these things to happen, but the experts sure are not. I don’t want to give away the story just yet. You’ll have to read the Frontiers page on Monday, April 12. Same goes for Chewbacca. That story will be in an upcoming issue of Day & Night Magazine.What really stands out to me whenever I attend the symposium is just how entrenched Colorado is in the space industry. Right here in our own backyard we have DigitalGlobe, Starsys, Ball Aerospace, Lockheed-Martin and the University of Colorado. NASA rarely does a thing in space without one or more of these groups being involved.I can’t even begin to mention all the connections the Air Force and Colorado Springs have with the space industry. Which leads me to this little tip for high school and college students: Engineering.One of the panels we sat in on discussed jobs in the industry. There is currently a shortage of engineers. With the national policy in place to return to the moon and go on to Mars, the demand for engineers will only grow. On top of that, the engineers who have held jobs at NASA and with its various contractors for the past 30 years are retiring.It is predicted that there will be a mass exodus from the engineering fields as these early space pioneers ride their last rockets to the old folks home. If you’re thinking about a rewarding, well-paying career, consider engineering. Within the next few years you will be able to write your own ticket in the space industry.Boeing, for example, already is recruiting at the high-school level. If there was ever a time for our schools to renew a focus on math and science, this is it.The doors to space are being flung wide open. The opportunities that await beyond this world for my generation and that of our children are endless. The things that are happening now and that are being planned are absolutely amazing. This is the time to be a part of what is to come. This is our time to touch the future for generations to come.And that’s no April Fools joke.