Assateague Voices John Husson

This month, Assateague Voices celebrates “NASA November,” with a three-part series on the RockOn and RockSat-C and -X education programs at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. For the third and final episode we highlight Cubes in Space, a RockOn and RockSat partner, and the only global STEM program that gives middle and high school students the opportunity to fly experiments aboard NASA sounding rockets and balloons. I spoke with Amber Agee-DeHart, founder and director of Cubes in Space, on the eve of this year’s RockOn launch. She shared with us the extent of Cubes’s global outreach, the depth and variety of student experimentation, potentially life-saving student research, the importance of grit, and the value of working with the Wallops education team.
 
Here’s our episode.
 
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE:
 
Cubes in Space: cubesinspace.com
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility: https://www.nasa.gov/wallops/
Wallops STEM Engagement: https://www.nasa.gov/wallops/stem/
RockSat and RockOn programs: https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-rocksat-program/

This month, Assateague Voices celebrates NASA November, with a three-part series on the RockOn and RockSat-C and -X education programs at NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. These programs draw higher education students from around the country to Wallops every summer, to fly experiments of their own design aboard Wallops sounding rockets. In this episode, we talk with Jonathan Herberger, a double-major senior at Northern Nazarene University in Idaho. Together with his student team and faculty advisors, Jonathan is conducting Project Daedelus, which may one day make space safer and life better here on earth. We spoke shortly before the RockSat-X launch with his experiment on board. We discussed performing complex tasks in microgravity, clearing space debris, reusable rocketry, and advancing civilization without destroying it. We also spoke a second time about the challenges that come with rocket science, lessons learned, and the role of the Wallops program in helping young scientists advance.
Here's our episode.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE:
Jonathan Herberger:  https://jonathanherberger.com 
Project Daedelus: https://jonathanherberger.com/projects 
Space Debris
Stuff in Space real-time space debris tracker: https://sky.rogue.space
Kessler Syndrome: https://www.space.com/kessler-syndrome-space-debris
Clean Space Initiative, ESA: https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Clean_Space
NASA Orbital Space Debris Program: https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/photo-gallery/
Washington Post, "Space Junk is Out of Control": 49gzRF5
Reusable Rocketry
The Rise of Reusable Rocketry: https://www.kdcresource.com/insights/the-rise-of-reusable-rockets-transforming-the-economics-of-space-travel/
Stoke Space: https://www.stokespace.com
Rocket Lab Reusable Rockets: https://www.rocketlabusa.com/launch/reusable-rockets/
Blue Origin New Shepard: https://www.blueorigin.com/new-shepard
Space-X Falcon 9: https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/falcon-9/

One of the most important missions undertaken by NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility is STEM engagement—delivering programs and resources that support education in science, technology, engineering, and math. And key to that mission are the RockSat and RockOn programs. These programs draw higher ed students from around the country to Wallops every summer to fly experiments of their own design into space on NASA Wallops Flight Facility sounding rockets. This month on Assateague Voices we celebrate “NASA November” with episodes focused on RockOn and RockSat-C and -X. We’ll talk with an Idaho university senior whose team is conducting an amazing multi-year experiment aboard RockSat-X, and a Virginia-based collaborative partner whose program lets students nationwide design, research, and test experiments on RockSat-C. And we start right at Wallops, with Dr. Joyce Winterton, Sr. Advisor for Education and Leadership Development.
 
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE:
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility: https://www.nasa.gov/wallops/
Wallops STEM Engagement: https://www.nasa.gov/wallops/stem/
RockSat and RockOn programs: https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-rocksat-program/
RockOn 2024 Application: https://www.nasa.gov/wallops/stem/rock-on/ 
RockOn MSI Faculty Workshop: https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-rocksat-program/ 
RockOn/RockSat-C launch video (courtesy NASA): https://www.youtube.com/live/f2kmaYtW_7s?si=f7E7Z_6WGOXWhxSN
RockSat-X launch video (courtesy NASA): https://www.youtube.com/live/VJGH7GrnEuk?si=C5gyJ0VllbKbPcAo 

If you’ve visited the Maryland side of Assateague Island over the last few years you’ve encountered the Pony Patrol. It’s the small, all-volunteer year-round force dedicated to keeping the island’s two dominant invasive species—wild horses and humans—safe from each other. This summer I spoke with two Pony Patrollers—Marcus Urioste, a retired nuclear submarine commander, and Rick Bocian, a retired Baltimore firefighter. We were joined by Liz Davis, then the national seashore’s Chief of Interpretation and head of the Pony Patrol. Our conversation ranged from best ways to get wild horses to move along to the challenges of managing pandemic-driven crowds, and from the dangers that humans and wild horses pose to each other to the continuing equine soap opera that is the island’s Maryland herd. 
 
By the way, you can hear more from Liz reflecting on her Assateague years in Episode 20, “Assateague Farewell.” You can also hear my interview with Kelly Taylor, who gets a big Pony Patrol shout-out here, in Episode 10, “Welcome Visitors.”
 
AINS Volunteer Page: https://www.nps.gov/asis/getinvolved/volunteer.htm
 
Washington Post: "Why can't tourists stop messing with wild animals?", June 16, 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2023/06/16/yellowstone-bison-selfie-gored/
 
Wall Street Journal: "Volunteer 'Pony Patrol' Wrangles Humans and Protects Wild Horses," photo/video essay, June 4, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/story/volunteer-pony-patrol-wrangles-humans-and-protects-wild-horses-a3255515
 
Wall Street Journal: "No Pay, Big Bugs and Obnoxious Tourists. But Many Love the Job," May 29, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/national-park-service-summer-job-wild-horses-tourists-73bb065a (Note: This may be behind a paywall)

In this episode, I speak with Carly Toulan of the Maryland Coastal Bays Program. Every spring, working with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, she and her team of volunteers conduct a survey of spawning horseshoe crabs in Maryland's coastal bays. These surveys provide invaluable insights into not only horseshoe crabs but the environment around them. (They also rescue stranded spawning horseshoe crabs.)
I met up with Carly at the Oceanic Motel in Ocean City, along the inlet and in the shadow of Trimper Rides. It was a surprisingly windy day, and even with a fitted windscreen my microphones still picked up the wind noise you hear in the background. We had an amazing conversation that covered seemingly everything about horseshoe crabs: habitat, spawning, anatomy, mortality, importance of coastal bay islands, and LAL and the role they play in keeping us all safe. It's a rich and enriching journey into the life of Carly's (and mine) favorite living fossil.
Resources, or Down the Rabbit Hole:
Horseshoe Crab survey final reports https://mdcoastalbays.org/the-programs/outreach/horseshoe-crab-surveys/
Video of baby horseshoe crabs (yes, they are adorable) https://fb.watch/mjsMoGOQqW/ 
Oceanic Motel https://oceanicoc.com/?/oceanic 
Horseshoe Crab brochure—a great primer https://mdcoastalbays.org/app/uploads/2023/06/Horseshoe-Crab-Brochure.pdf 

Today, August 31, 2023, marks Liz Davis's last day as Chief of Interpretation and Education for Assateague Island National Seashore. Liz is retiring from the National Park Service after a 32-year career, all of it spent on Assateague. 
Liz sat down with me recently and took a look back at a career that spans half the park's existence. We covered a lot of topics, from migrating birds to the pandemic, in a sometimes-emotional conversation that I'm sure barely scratched the surface of a lifetime of Assateague experiences.