Ginger Kerrick on manning Nasa's Mission Control and getting to Mars

Childhood dreams and early tragedies

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1:07You're about to listen to the latest series of The Life Scientific. Episodes will be released weekly wherever you get your podcasts. But if you're in the UK, you can listen to the latest episodes, 28 Days Before Anywhere Else, first on BBC Sounds.

1:25My guest today is a physicist whose childhood dream of becoming an astronaut led to a three-decade career at NASA, helping shape the future of human spaceflight. Ginger Kerrick fell in love with space at the age of five after finding a book about astronauts at her local library in El Paso, Texas. By her 20s, after getting a master's in physics, she was working at NASA and going through the rigorous interview process to become an astronaut herself, only to be permanently disqualified after doctors discovered kidney stones. For some people, that might have been the end of the story. For

2:00Ginger, it was just the beginning. She went on to become NASA's first non-astronaut capsule communicator, serving as the voice linking mission control to astronauts. She later became their first Hispanic female flight director, overseeing high-stakes space shuttle and International Space Station operations. Along the way, she's lived and worked in Russia, helping to train the first long-term crew on the International Space Station, logged thousands of hours in mission control, and was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. She says there are always going to be bumps in the road that force you

2:35to change course. And that's okay, because you might be very pleasantly surprised at what lies in store on that new path. Ginger Kerrick, welcome to The Live Scientific. Thank you so much. Ginger, you've been involved in human spaceflight from the shuttle era right through to early planning for the Artemis and Mars missions. What would you say are the biggest scientific shifts you've seen over that time? Has anything come in and just completely blown up the status quo? Well, we don't like to use the word blown up in human spaceflight, but I would say when SpaceX came

3:13onto the scene, it was shortly after we retired the space shuttle, and they had an idea of reusing their rockets. And at first, it didn't look like it was going to work, but eventually, they were able to land those on a barge and refurbish them and reuse them. And that saves almost 70% of the costs of a launch. So that was game changing. I mentioned your time in Russia, and we're going to come to that in a moment. But your work there

3:44during the 1990s earned you a prestigious NASA Silver Snoopy Award for outstanding contributions to mission success. Now, for any listeners who might not know, can you explain how Snoopy, the lovable dog belonging to Charlie Brown in the Peanuts cartoon, is connected to NASA? Yes, I was always a fan of Snoopy growing up. But I also knew that in the 1960s, NASA had adopted Snoopy as its safety mascot. Snoopy even flew on one of the early Apollo missions

4:18and orbited the moon. So when I realized I was getting this award, which is only awarded to 1% of NASA's workforce, I thought, wow, this is a dream come true. It's a tiny little Snoopy lapel badge that you wear, isn't it? Very unassuming. I have it up here in my office on my wall so I can look at it every day. Great. Well, Ginger Kerrick, you were born in 1969 in El Paso, Texas. Tell me about your parents. What did they do? So my dad, I have to do this with the right accent. My dad was a dairy

4:55farmer from Owensboro, Kentucky. And my mother immigrated from Mexico when she was four years old. So my dad was a supervisor at an ice cream plant. And my mother was a stay-at-home mom raising four kids. And I mentioned in the introduction that you first became interested in space after a trip to the library. This was with your dad. Yes. Every Friday, I would go check out a book. And I remember coming home very excited to get this book, Astronomy and Astronauts.

5:29And I read that book cover to cover and announced to my parents, I want to be an astronaut. Lots of kids say, I want to be an astronaut. Not many end up actually living the dream. Well, as we'll hear. Tragically, though, when you were just 11 years old, your father died from a heart attack. In fact, it happened right in front of you. It was the day I made the seventh grade basketball team. And I was so excited. And my mom took me to my father's place of work because he was

6:02going to have a surprise for me by taking me out to a local college basketball game. But when I arrived there, I went up to his office. I could see him in his chair and he was flopping back and forth and clearly having a full fledged heart attack. Goodness. When the ambulance arrived, they put him on a gurney and he waved goodbye to me. And that was the last time I saw him alive. Oh, wow. Well, understandably, that had a profound impact on you. I gather part of your grieving process

6:34involved turning to science to make sense of what had happened. Yes, I missed school while all of this was going on. And I asked my science teacher, instead of making up the regular coursework, if I could research arteriosclerosis. So I went to the library and I made a clay model of a heart and I shoved the aorta with cotton to illustrate the blockage that my dad had. And I researched foods that contribute to high cholesterol and told my mom, I said, I have some suggestions on how we can modify

7:11our daily diet so that we can prevent this from happening again. So my science brain wanted to understand the cause. And then what mitigations could I put in place? I mean, I have to say that's quite remarkable for an 11 year old. Yes, when I was presenting in class, the teacher started crying. And I thought, Oh, no, this is data, you need to pay attention.

College setbacks and joining NASA

7:39Well, Ginger, as you progress through school, your love of science came to the fore. But you were also, as you've mentioned, a talented basketball player. In fact, when you graduated high school, you were named El Paso female athlete of the year. Yes, I loved basketball just as much as I loved space. So when I got to college, I made the basketball team. And then a few days before our first game, I'm in practice going in for a layup and a girl fouls me undercuts me and I tumble. And I try to get up and I realize I can't

8:14because my kneecap is no longer facing in the forward direction. I had completely dislocated it. So the end of your basketball dreams? Yes. And I thought, maybe I should just go with my backup dream of being an astronaut. Well, you know, you just have to make do, I suppose. But academically, Ginger, you were doing brilliantly at university when you opted to go further afield from El Paso for your third year. Now, this is fairly common in the US. It's called a transfer scheme and let students who perhaps can't afford to live away from home initially shift universities partway

8:50through their studies. So off you went to Texas Tech. How did you enjoy your new independent student life given that, you know, until then you were living at home? Yes, I was. And I was on a very short leash at home. So I couldn't stay out past 9pm. I couldn't really date. So when I left and went away to school, I had a good time. I made a lot of new friends. I spent a lot of time at the recreation center there playing sports of all kinds. I ditched class. So even though I had a wonderful time, my grade

9:27point average did not. So I wound up going from a 4.0 to a 2.7. I mean, you're not the first young student to go a bit mad after leaving home and I doubt you'll be the last. But that brief slip in your grades did have consequences, didn't it? In terms of what internship programs you could apply for at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Yes. As soon as that happened, I called NASA and I said, I don't suppose you would entertain

9:59a candidate with a 2.7 GPA. And they started laughing at me and said, no, we would absolutely not. So don't call us back until you are at least a 3.0. Wow. Well, you did manage to raise your grades enough to get onto a certain internship program. Yes. It wasn't the one I wanted. So back then, NASA had two types of internships. One of them

10:31was a summer internship. You go there for the summer and they don't owe you a thing after that. You go back to school and it's like best of luck. But the other one is called a co-op program. And that is an actual partnership. I wanted that one because I knew they usually hire those co-op students for permanent positions at NASA. Right. But with my little 3.0, I only qualified for the summer internship. So I show up at NASA and my first thing that I asked my new boss was,

11:05do you know how I can transfer into that co-op program? And unfortunately he did not. So I thought, okay, I'm on my own to figure this out. So I asked my boss, if I do the work that you've asked me to do and I can finish a little early, would you allow me to go work in a couple of different organizations at NASA with other students that are co-ops? So I am seen by other organizations and maybe their bosses can write me letters of recommendation. And at the end of

11:41the summer, you can demand that I be converted. And he was like, well, okay. Yeah.

11:50So you did make it onto this coveted internship program. Alongside that, you continued at Texas Tech, getting your master's in physics. And in 1994, this is, you started work as a materials research engineer at NASA's Johnson Space Center. Was it everything you'd hoped? Absolutely not. So I show up and they escort me to my place of employment and it is basically a dungeon. It's down in a basement. There are no windows. It's about 65 degrees in there. And that

12:25was probably the average age of the other four individuals in there. And I thought, this is not the NASA I had in my head. Well, I gather when it came to applying to be an astronaut, which was still your dream, you were told you needed broader experience. So you went on this secondment to another section, working as an instructor on the environmental control and life support system that will be used in the up and coming International Space Station. And that meant you had to get to grips with every element of this, I mean, incredibly technical system to teach actual

13:02astronauts who'd be using it in space. Yes. And I was beyond excited. This is a physicist's dream to be working with these systems. So I was in charge of teaching the astronauts and coming up with curriculum to train the people that would work in NASA's mission control. So it couldn't have been more perfect. But of course, you had also put in an application to actually become an astronaut yourself. And out of the thousands who applied, you were invited to go on to the interview process.

13:34Yes, it was great. There were 3000 people apply and 120 of us were selected for interviews. And back then, NASA would do it in just one week. So in that one week, there would be physical fitness tests, psychological screening, medical tests, and a one hour interview. And tell me about the duffel bag. So one of the tests, I don't know what it is. And I just show up in this room, and there's a duffel bag in the middle of the room. And they say, get in. So I got in,

14:05and they zip me up in there. And I'm guessing the test objective was, are you claustrophobic? Right. But that test happened right after my treadmill test. So I was pretty tired. So as soon as I hunkered down there in the bag, I fell asleep. So I'm pretty sure I passed the she's not claustrophobic test. Well, you passed that test. But of course, then came the medical tests. Yes. I went in for an ultrasound of my lower abdomen. And the technician saw something funny.

14:41And when they posted the CT scan results up on the screen, I just started bawling uncontrollably, because I could see white dots. And it was very, very clear that I had kidney stones. And at the time, this meant instant disqualification. Yes. How did you handle the news? Not well. I don't even remember the final day of interviews. I remember being at home all weekend long crying. But of course, you did still have this other job working as an instructor for the ISS crew.

15:17So I gather you found a way to make that secondment permanent. I did. I thought I like this job teaching astronauts. I didn't even know that was a job when I was a little five-year-old. So maybe if I stay with what I like, maybe other doors will open at NASA and I will have a career that maybe I didn't even envision for myself.

15:41Fall flavors are waiting for you at Whole Foods Market. Cozy picks all through the store, like maple leaf cookies from 365 brand. Swing by the bakery for pumpkin cheesecake, here for a limited time, and pumpkin turmeric bread freshly baked every single day. Sip the season with 365 brand cinnamon spice coffee and pumpkin spice creamer while you still can. Spice up Fall at Whole Foods Market. It's late 2007 and while attending a Christmas party, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg meets a woman

16:15who would change the course of his company forever. She joined Facebook as chief of operations in 2008 and has been credited for making the company profitable. And herself enormously rich. On Good Bad Billionaire, we're exploring the life and fortune of billionaire tech leader Sheryl Sandberg. Listen on BBC.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Training crews in Russia

16:38Well, Ginger, all that crew training you were doing was in preparation for Expedition One, the first long-term mission to the International Space Station. And it was soon clear that you needed better integration between the American and Russian training programs. And in 1997, you and a small team moved to Russia's Star City base, north of Moscow. So how difficult was it integrating Russian and American training techniques and sensibilities?

17:10It was a bit challenging because on the US side, we've been doing this. We flew Skylab. We flew Shuttle. We know what we're doing. And on the Russian side, they had their Solute Space Station, their Mir Space Station, and they had a lot of expertise. So a lot of emotional intelligence was required in addition to the technical know-how to be able to bridge the gap between experts in two different countries. Well, it was for that work there that you did receive the Snoopy Award. And in November of the

17:47year 2000, you saw the result of your efforts when Expedition One arrived at the ISS. I mean, that must have been an incredible moment. Oh, it was. It was four years of my life almost. And everywhere that crew was, I was there. If they were in Russia, I was there. If they were in Kazakhstan, somewhere in the US. So we were a family. And to see my kids, my little crew mom, see my kids go off into space, I thought, wow, this has been

18:18worth every effort. I am a part of history. And did everything go to plan during those critical early days when the crew were just getting the ISS properly set up? Oh, no. Every day was an adventure. Their first 10 days, they were under high pressure to set up the life support equipment. Otherwise, they would have to come home. Most of that went well. But one piece of equipment, I remember. And it seems to be a common theme in human spaceflight, but their toilet.

18:49It was acting up. And they needed to really understand what was happening with it. I mean, you're right. Space toilets do tend to be an issue on so many space missions. But after that

Mission control and the Columbia disaster

19:01four-year stint in Russia, you moved back to the US in 2001, and were offered the role of capsule communicator, CAPCOM, in mission control, which essentially meant you were the person handling communications between Houston and the crews. And you were the first non-astronaut in NASA's history to hold that role, which is quite an achievement. Yes. And the rationale is that our astronauts in space wanted to talk to somebody on the ground that knew that vehicle inside and out. But when you

19:33look at the space station, I had trained the first crew. So they said, you've spent the most time with that crew. You've got more training than any of our astronaut pool. So why don't you give it a try? I think everyone listening will be familiar with this role from the movies. You're really at the heart of mission control. And that must come with a lot of pressure, particularly when things go wrong. I gather you were at the ISS CAPCOM desk in February 2003, when Space Shuttle Columbia broke

20:06up during reentry, killing all seven astronauts on board. Yes. For shuttle missions, we have a shuttle mission control. And for space station missions, we have a space station mission control. I was in the space station room the day Columbia went down. And our astronaut on board the space station had just called down and said, Hey, Jen, I think the shuttle should have landed by now. Do you have a status report? When he made that call, I am watching it on CNN. And I'm watching the shuttle break up. And I can

20:43hear the CAPCOM in the other room calling to the crew, trying to get them to respond. And they're not answering. And it is very clear to me that they will never answer. So I had to tell them what happened. Wow. I mean, it must be hard for them that the crew still up at the ISS are thinking, you know, we've got to come back down, come back home in a few months. And the shuttle would supply their water, their food at that time. So there's probably a wide range of emotions that he was going through,

21:14you know, in addition to losing, you know, basically family members as part of the astronaut community.

21:21Following that disaster, of course, space shuttle flight operations and construction of the ISS were suspended for about two years. How did that impact you and the team in mission control? Well, we spent those two years trying to figure out what happened with the Columbia accident, and how to make sure that it didn't happen again. So that was part of the job that I was doing. But the other part was just making sure that we could maintain continuous human presence on board the International Space Station. Part of that was deciding to go down to two crew members for a time,

21:56and convincing our Russian counterparts to fly our crew members up and down in the interim. So I'm really glad we had that partnership with our Russian counterparts, because they really helped us during that time frame. Well, after those two years, Ginger, you were promoted and recorded another NASA first, becoming the first Hispanic female flight director. I guess this must be bittersweet for you, always hearing these firsts being hailed as great achievements, because, you know, they may well

22:28encourage others. But equally, it's crazy that they're still a thing. I wish it weren't a thing. And it shouldn't matter what colour I am, where I came from. All should matter is what I bring to the table at work. So I long for a day when that is the world that we live in. And I gather flight director is one of the most technically demanding operational roles. So what exactly did it involve? You have the responsibility of the crew's lives in your hands, not just when you're in mission control.

23:02People look to you to make decisions all along the way that could impact the lives of the crew. So you're responsible for the crew, you're responsible for the integrity of the spacecraft that they're flying in, and then execution of the mission. And you have to be dedicated and recognise that that comes first.

Managing Mars missions and samples

23:22You continued climbing the NASA ladder, working with the ISS and the Artemis mission, which is, of course, the NASA project to get humans back on the moon. But in 2021, you took on your final role at the Johnson Space Centre, Assistant Centre Director for Vision and Strategy. That meant overseeing some really exciting areas, including the curation of extraterrestrial samples and orbital debris. What can we learn from the materials that NASA has gathered over all these years?

23:55Oh yes, we've gathered a lot of samples from the Moon, Mars, Sun, asteroids, comets, you name it. So there's a lot to be learned there. For example, with the lunar samples, combined with some of the reconnaissance missions that we have, we targeted the South Pole as a landing site because there's water, ice there. So it helps inform future missions. You want to go where you can produce the resources that you need, basically live off the land. So that's one example. Another one might be

24:27from the asteroid, really understanding the composition of an asteroid in the event like they do in the movies. And NASA did one mission where you want to redirect it. Understanding the composition of the asteroid will help you design a spacecraft that can redirect it. So that's just a couple of examples. You also oversaw the development of NASA's Mars mission. What technological problems need solving if we are going to make it to Mars? Oh, there's so many. We're not ready to go to Mars

24:59and come back no matter what you hear in the news. Today, at best, about a three-year round trip is what's required with our current propulsion systems. So making sure we make advancements in propulsion systems that'll allow us to get there quicker, like perhaps a nuclear option. Also keeping the astronauts healthy along the way. We've done a lot of studies, long duration space flight on board the space station, but never longer than a year. So can you imagine you get out there, you didn't do the right

25:31countermeasures, you land on the surface of Mars and you can't even move. So making sure we understand that. There's also vision issues that the crews incur. And then communication delays. Right now, we have the advantage of seconds between when our astronauts are in low Earth orbit or around the moon. But at Mars, 24 minute delay. So there's a lot of different challenges that NASA and other agencies across the world are working on. But it'll come one day. Yes, I think so. Good. So you were

26:05doing all this incredibly exciting work at NASA, but 2021 was a big year for another reason, because it's when you married your husband, Sam. And possibly for the first time, I gather you started considering life after NASA. I did. So I married my Englishman husband, Sam, by the way. Excellent choice. Why, thank you. But up until that point, I had thought, well, I'll just dedicate myself to my career. And

26:35one day when I'm old, I'll pry my fingers off the laptop and I'll retire. But when I married him, he kept talking about when we retire, we can visit my family in Wales and Australia, New Zealand. And I thought, huh, I don't have to work for the rest of my life. I enjoy my work. But you know what I would enjoy even more, gallivanting across this great Earth of ours with my husband. And so you've taken a role in the private sector, I guess, to fund your retirement travel adventures.

27:12So you're currently Chief Strategy Officer at Barrios Technology. We've seen, of course, a huge boom in the private sector recently. What does that mean for the future of space flight?

The private sector and future technology

27:23When I was growing up, if you wanted to go into space, it was NASA. And that was it. Yeah. And now there are so many different opportunities for people. And each individual company in the private sector is doing something different. Some of them are building private space stations. Some of them are building private landers that will go on the moon and pre-position supplies. And I really do think the more we're able to establish true business opportunities in space, more companies will come.

27:53Hmm. Well, on that subject of where things are heading, what would you say are the new technologies that you think are going to really impact space exploration in the next decade or two? You mentioned the nuclear option, I guess, you know, fusion drive engines. But what else is really going to change things? You know, SpaceX was successful with their Falcon 9 boosters refurbishing those. We talked about those a little while ago. But there's also, in order to go beyond low Earth orbit, you have these heavy lift rockets and really trying to make sure that everything on the heavy lift rocket is reusable. That

28:30would be a game changer to help us with repeated missions to the moon and to Mars. But also, you know, that everybody's talking about AI using AI smartly, for example, having AI driven autonomous systems. So today, if something breaks on the space station, we have to have our astronauts and work with our flight control team to understand what happened and to fix it. But on missions to Mars, especially with

29:01the calm delay that I mentioned, having AI be a smart system, tell the astronauts, this is what's wrong. I've already fixed it. We're still at the infancy stages of trusting some of the AI solutions that are out there. But that would be an area if somebody could figure that out to really help streamline and set us up for success for missions further away from home. So that's the future of the technology. But having basically lived your childhood dream,

29:32Ginger, what words of wisdom do you have for the next generation of space flight leaders? Get out of your own way. Don't be the reason that you don't get an opportunity. A lot of people these days will opt out, self-select themselves out of an opportunity. They're either afraid or this crazy term, imposter syndrome that I absolutely hate. We're all afraid. Think about the last time that

30:04you were afraid of something and you did it anyway. So remind yourself how powerful you are and just go tackle the next thing. Great advice. Ginger Kerrick, thank you very much for sharing your life scientific. Thank you so much. I had a great time chatting with you today. And thank you for listening. I'm Jamal Kilili and my producer is Lucy Taylor. If you enjoyed listening to this edition of The Life Scientific, why not check out some of our other interviews with leading scientists exploring everything from space travel to medical breakthroughs. You can access the whole

30:36archive of programs for free via BBC Sounds. It's late 2007 and while attending a Christmas party, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg meets a woman who would change the course of his company forever. She joined Facebook as chief of operations in 2008 and has been credited for making the company profitable. And herself enormously rich. On Good Bad Billionaire, we're exploring the life and fortune of billionaire tech leader, Sheryl Sandberg. Listen on bbc.com, the BBC app, or wherever you get your podcasts.