What happens when a kid in footie pajamas watching the Moon landing grows up to help design the future of space travel? In this episode of The Curiosity Club, Gabrielle sits down with Les Johnson, recently retired Chief Technologist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, to find out.

Les shares how a childhood filled with starry skies and Star Trek reruns turned into a decades-long career at NASA working on advanced propulsion, solar sails, and missions that push the edge of what’s possible. He walks us through some of his most fascinating work, and along the way, opens up about imposter syndrome, what it’s like to work alongside astronauts and Apollo-era legends, and how he became a science author and science-fiction writer, even finishing the final novel of famed writer Ben Bova.

Gabrielle and Les also dive into big questions: How much of space have we really explored? Is alien life out there? What should we think about UAPs? And how do faith, science, and curiosity all fit together when you look up at the night sky? Stay tuned to the end for Les’s advice to future NASA dreamers, and why he hopes his life’s work becomes a tiny footnote in a history book one day, written on another world.

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