Good morning, SXSWers! By the way, how would you say that? “South By Southwesters” or something else? Leave me a comment and let me know!

A couple of weeks ago, I had the distinct pleasure of chatting with Heather Doyle and Courtney O’Connor, two of the amazing women from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) that will present the Reach Out and Touch Space panel on Friday, March 8. I call it a distinct pleasure because I am not only a huge space nerd, but also probably the world’s biggest Depeche Mode fan.

My worlds collided when I came across this panel, and I knew I had to preview it! Heather and Courtney could not have been more gracious and patient in answering my questions, and luckily the government shutdown came to an end just in time.

First of all, how did you come up with the name of your panel?

O’Connor: “The name of our panel practically wrote itself. Our session is all about how NASA is reaching out to communities in innovative ways to create personal connections to space. And the fact that the name is also a nod to a lyric by Depeche Mode? Even better. The audience at SXSW seems a crowd who can appreciate an unexpected pop culture reference.”

How can you recreate the excitement of visiting a NASA location at any old place, say a farmers market?

Doyle: “I manage a NASA volunteer network called the Solar System Ambassadors (SSAs). These nationwide volunteers are tasked to run four events per year in their communities and report them back to me. The most successful events that are reported are those where an SSA relates NASA missions and science to something local or unique about their community. For example, I have an SSA in the outer banks of North Carolina who, working with the North Carolina Maritime Museum, where Blackbeard’s Flagship, the Queen Anne, sunk in the waters just off the area, presents on the history of Celestial Navigation and relates that to how spacecraft navigate today. I have an SSA in Elkton, Florida who partners with the local Fall crop maze where he brings out his telescope and invites participants to observe the Moon and speaks about NASA’s history and current lunar missions. Farmers Market specifically, I do have an SSA in Napa, California who sets up a station at the farmers market with her telescope that is fitted with a solar filter to observe sun spots and she talks about NASA’s Heliophysics missions. We want SSAs to meet people where they already are rather than always expecting them always to come to us.”

What kind of mobile interactive exhibits are out there? Will you be bringing them to the panel?

O’Connor: “The Mars InSight Roadshow is a really great example. It’s a traveling interactive exhibit that stopped at cities along the California coast to explain how the InSight mission will study Mars’ deep interior. The Roadshow brought science activities, exhibits and public talks to communities throughout the state, making comparisons between earthquakes and marsquakes that InSight will try to detect.”

Do you hope to reach more children or adults with these outreach programs?
Heather Doyle: NASA hopes to reach everyone and it’s in our charter to do so. But of course inspiring the next generation to not only learn about science but go into a STEM field is a goal as well because we need a future workforce. I also manage a duo of NASA websites for kids called NASA Space Place and NASA Climate Kids that are catered directly to kids to engage them with NASA science and help them answer those big questions they always have like – Why is the sky blue?

How do normal people (read: not space nuts like me) get excited about space and NASA’s missions?
Heather Doyle: Relate NASA missions to something they care about. Whether it’s Art, History, Science or NASA Spin-offs that have benefitted our daily lives with inventions like biomedical sensors or cancer research, the science that NASA does contributes to pretty much all walks of life here on Earth. Especially our Earth Science missions that help us prepare for extreme weather and other natural disasters!

What staff puts on these events?
Heather Doyle: A mix of communications staff and public volunteers.
Courtney O’Connor: We also bring out subject matter experts – scientists and engineers working on NASA missions. A kid having a meaningful conversation with an expert at one of our events can have a profound impact on their career trajectory.

For more information about this subject, please check out the Reach Out and Touch Space panel on Friday, March 8 at 12:30 p.m. at the Austin Convention Center, Ballroom G.