Inspiring the next generation to the stars - Creative Futurism

Lance Bush, President of the Challenger Learning Centers for Space Science Education talks about his mission to interest kids in pursuing careers in science and engineering, how to motivate the next generation to truly look to the future. “The first person who will walk on Mars is alive today and in a classroom somewhere.”

For more information about Challenger Learning Centers, or to donate, visit www.challenger.org

Full Transcription:

Kevin:             Welcome to Creative Futurism podcast. I’m Kevin J. Anderson.

John:               And I’m John Best.

Kevin:             And we’ve got a great show for you today and a really cool guest. Something that’s kind of near and dear to my heart. And I’ll give you a little background because as a science fiction writer of course I was always interested in the space program and NASA and exploring other planets. And I’ve got almost an odd story because when I was just a little kid I was watching Lost in Space and Star Trek and science fiction movies. And I remember I think I was seven years old when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. And everybody was glued to their television sets and everybody was watching when he came down the ladder and the eagle and stepped foot on the moon. And I remember my old aunts had tears running down their face. And my parents were all excited. And I remember looking at it and going, ‘Huh, did we do that already?’ Because I was watching science fiction movies all the time and I thought, ‘Where’s the monsters? This isn’t nearly as exciting.

John:               Forbidden Planet, right?

Kevin:           Yeah, but I grew up always following the space program. And I got my own telescope when I was in high school. I majored in astronomy because I wanted to be a science fiction writer and if you’re going to be a science fiction writer you have to know how like black holes and quasars and colliding galaxies and all kinds of stuff like that. But I also was following NASA, following the shuttle program. I saw a shuttle launch, an Atlantis launch in person down at the Kennedy space center. And I like just about everybody else in this country remember exactly where I was when the news of the Challenger accident happened. And that was such a huge effect on me for years. I mean that was sort of our-not exactly our first tragedy but it was really our first-you know if you’re going to go where no one has gone before sometimes it’s dangerous. And many years later after I had a career all on my own, science fiction writing, through another science fiction friend my wife and I got in touch with June Scobee Rogers whose husband was the commander of the Challenger mission. And June wanted to write a young adult science fiction series to inspire kids in science and space. And so, she started working first with my wife Rebecca but then I kind of came aboard to help write it. And we wrote a series called The Star Challengers about basically kids doing science stuff but there’s an adventure behind it. So that the readers were secretly being tricked into learning science while they were reading about alien invasions. We got to know June really well. And June is just-if you have a list of the most wonderful people in the world, June is sort of above the top of it. So, she’s great and she got me involved in her organization called The Challenger Center. The Challenger Learning Center where her goal was to get young people interested in science and technology. And eventually she asked me which means that you say yes because you never say no to June Scobee Rogers. She asked me to become a board member of the Challenger Center. And I’ve been serving them as a board member for probably ten years or so. I’m sorry, I didn’t look it up. Anyway, when you and I started this podcast one of my first guests that I wanted to have was the head of The Challenger Learning Ce...