This Week in Space 124 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

0:00:00 - Rod Pyle
On this episode of this Week in Space, we're talking with Czarina Salido about her work with Native American Girls and Space Camp. Join us.

0:00:12 - VO
Podcasts you love. From people you trust. This is TWiT.

0:00:18 - Rod Pyle
This is this Week in Space, episode number 124, recorded august 16th 2024. Space for everyone. Hello and welcome to another episode of this week in space, the taking up space edition. I'm rod pile, editor-in-chief of ad astor magazine, and I'm here once again, at last, with my dear old buddy Tariq malik, who finally decided to come back from his global travels and dragged COVID with him. Well done, my friend.

0:00:47 - Tariq Malik
That's right. That's right. I am back. I went to Alaska, I saw the Northern Lights, I got COVID yeah you get Alaska and I get Bend Oregon for my summer vacation, but oh well, which is where I am now.

0:01:01 - Rod Pyle
I am not in my usual setup and of course you, dear man, are the editor-in-chief at spacecom and we're all very impressed by that. So still, yeah, still 25 years.

0:01:17 - Tariq Malik
Let's see, wait a minute what's that memo I just got, oh for another two days.

0:01:19 - Rod Pyle
Yeah, oh, they haven't told you yet. I guess you were gone a little too long.

That's why we're, yeah, taking some time off for the comeback and give you the boot. We are going to be joined today by Czarina Salido. She's a physicist and all around do-gooder. She founded Taking Up Space in 2014 and started getting active with this nonprofit in 2016 to help Native American girls enter stem fields with experiences that include online curriculum and uh trips to space camp and other things. We'll be hearing from her in just a few minutes. She's she's a very busy woman that's doing great things. Now, before we start, as always, please don't forget to do us a solid and make sure to like and subscribe and all the other podcast things that we need you to do and give us high ratings, because we work very hard to earn your high ratings. Now, in a complete contravention to that which will probably discourage ratings, it's time for a space joke. Hey, tariq, yes, rod, what kind of reptile lives in the Oort cloud?

0:02:21 - Tariq Malik
I don't know what kind of reptile would live out there, but it's for me, please it's a comic, comic, comic, comic, comic.

0:02:30 - Rod Pyle
Chameleon, I love it.

0:02:34 - Tariq Malik
I love it. It's the culture classes boy, George, that's right on my alley. That's a good joke.

0:02:38 - Rod Pyle
You know it's actually. I didn't even remember who it was. Now that you mentioned it, that's interesting. So I've heard I've heard that some folks start banging their heads on the wall when it's joke time here. But you know that's your fault because you didn't send us a better one, Although that one was pretty good. That came from listener Aaron Slack. So thank you, Aaron, and pick up the Slack and send us some more. Boy, that was terrible.

0:03:00 - Tariq Malik
I got a real, real, real, short, real short, real fun side story story when I was, like in first grade. I I was sure that boy george came to my school, you know, uh, because he was like at the height of his popularity, and looking, looking back now, uh, you know, 30, 40 years later, I realized it was just like an eighth grader dressed like him, and I'm very embarrassed for my like seven-year-old self or eight-year-old self, however old I was I'm sure that's not the least embarrassing moment you had in, uh, or the most embarrassing moment you had in middle school.

0:03:35 - Rod Pyle
Let's do some headlines real quick. Yes, some new effects here. This is exciting. So, hey, Tariq, now that you're back, yes, earn your, earn your stripes, do a little heavy lifting and hey, give us. We had another press conference with NASA just a couple days ago on Starliner, so they could spend another 40 minutes not telling us what's going on. So what do you say?

0:03:56 - Tariq Malik
Well, I'm going to put it in perspective. In the space of the eight day mission of NASA's Starliner, I have gone to Singapore, come back from Singapore, gone to Alaska and come back from Alaska over the course of two months. So with this latest update this week, NASA has said that they haven't made a decision yet. That was their big news. They opened by saying they had no big announcements to make. However, they said that they may make a decision as early as the end of the next week. So hopefully, by the time you and I meet again for this week in space, we can say definitively when these astronauts, butch Wilmore and Sonny Williams, will return to earth and if it will be on star liner or if it will be on a SpaceX, which seems very likely because they keep saying that they don't really have a risk analysis in hand with these thrust ratios they've been doing. That was really surprising this week, where again it was just NASA managers. There was no one from Boeing on the call. Yeah, that was weird managers.

0:05:03 - Rod Pyle
There was no one from Boeing on the call. Yeah, that was weird.

0:05:06 - Tariq Malik
They did say that they really couldn't pin down the specific risk of coming back on Starliner. They do say that it's fine for the astronauts to use Starliner to come to Earth if there's an emergency, like a meteor hits the space station or something like that, that they can come home. But they don't want to say that for like normal, which is really strange to me at this point in time. So it's just very confusing. But it's clear that they in fact actually one of our writers, josh Dinner, asked NASA if this thruster issue is a fatal flaw quote unquote for Starliner or not, and it wasn't clear if NASA is looking at it that way or not. But clearly it's something that they have to just truly get their minds around and they really just weren't ready to make a final call. Ken Bowersox did say that they need to make an announcement or a decision at the end of their next flight readiness review meeting, the next FRR. That could be as early as next week or, as we're recording this, it could be a little bit after very early in the week prior because they have to get ready. Are they going to have Butch and Sonny make some makeshift seats on the Crew-8 Dragon and come down with them.

Are they going to leave two astronauts off of the Crew-9 launching in late September and then have them stay up there until February and then come back with that crew? Do they come back on Starliner sometime in September? Those are decisions that require a lot of preparation. Either way, that they go to get ready, because there's a lot of moving parts. Right now you have a new crew waiting to fly to the space station on a Russian Soyuz. You have the Crew-9 mission. In late September, you have this cargo mission that is just arriving this weekend, as we're recording it from Russia, and then another SpaceX one in the wings that's been delayed. So so, um, a lot of moving parts.

0:07:10 - Rod Pyle
uh, very, uh, but very much a punt to next week in terms of a decision yeah, a lot of moving parts with a lot of question marks associated and there's a lot to unpack here, but I think we'll. We'll just have to wait till next time, but it's going to be. You know, if SpaceX does end up, you know that the popular media is going to pick it up with the storyline of rescue. You know we're going to rescue these astronauts. It's just such another black guy for Boeing.

And I would give anything my pin feathers to be a fly on the wall in the senior C-suite conference room in Chicago just to find out not to gloat or anything. My pin feathers to be a fly on the wall in the senior C-suite conference room in Chicago just to find out not to gloat or anything, but just to find out what kind of conversation you can have after all the issues in civil aviation. And now this you know, I guess if I was the PR hack of the room, I'd be okay, like Gene Kranz said in Apollo 13. So what have we got on the spacecraft? That's good. What can we?

gloat about for a minute. I mean, are we making catalytic converters for for gasoline cars or something? All right, but we have to move along. So from that to a real upbeat, kind of a cool new thing Fram to flight on SpaceX. Now, the Fram was the ship that Edmondson sailed down to the South Pole famously, from which he departed to beat Scott to the South Pole, among other things. And the Fram, which I visited a couple years ago, was very ingeniously devised. Unlike the British ships and others that went down to the Antarctic, this one was shaped like a bowl, so while it wasn't very seaworthy, when the ice froze in, it just popped up and sat there until the ice melted. So ingenious. So tell us what the FRAM-2 spaceflight is.

0:08:58 - Tariq Malik
Yeah, so this is very exciting. We found out that by the end of this year, spacex will be flying another private mission, as you mentioned. It's called FRAM-2. And this will be a historic flight in and of itself. It's going to be the first this year, which is crazy. Usually like you get a, you get like a mission, and then there's like a like a full year of development and lead up to it, and then you get it, like we saw with Inspiration4. And, by the way, that mission, funded by Jared Isaacman, paved the way for Polaris Dawn, which is going to do the first private spacewalk on a SpaceX Dragon this month, as we're recording this, so it's just a couple of weeks away. So they're going to follow up that historic spacewalk with this historic polar flight.

This mission is financed by a cryptocurrency speculator and billionaire, chun Wang I believe I pronounced that correctly and they called him a crypto magnet over at CNBC where we got the story and it is named after this 19th century Fram mission to the poles, and he's bringing three other Arctic specialists with him. I apologize if I get these names wrong, because I've never heard them out loud, but you have Janneke Mikkelsen, who is a 38-year-old Norwegian filmmaker. You have Eric Phillips, a 62-year-old Australian explorer and guide, and Rabia I think it's Roge, a 28-year-old German researcher. So you've got these two men, these two women, who will be flying on this mission. They're going to have that cupola bubble on the nose, as they did with inspiration four, so they can observe the poles uh, with the tail and uh, and so it'll be very interesting.

And wang, by the way, is 42 years old that's younger than I am, wow, uh, from um tianjin, china, but he is in the malta now. Uh, uh, you know where he lives, his crypto lifestyle. But I mean, it seems like it's going to be a really interesting and different mission, which is exciting for these private missions because they all are doing different kind of tailored things, which is instead of just like going to the space station and then putzing around in zero G for a bit, which is what we've seen with a, the space station, and then putzing around in zero g for a bit, which is what we've seen with a few other ones.

0:11:27 - Rod Pyle
So very exciting and well is that a technical NASA term?

0:11:32 - Tariq Malik
oh, this is the putzing budget for this mission if I'm gonna pay billions of dollars to go to space. I just want to putz around. I don't, I don't think that, you know, I just want to, just, just, yeah, just, I'm going to kick off my shoes, have those little sock booty slipper things on and just look out the window and sip my space coffee. That's what I'm going to do, right, something maybe, maybe something for the good of mankind. You know to to for tax purposes, but I'm drinking the civet calf, the civet cat coffee for all mankind.

0:12:01 - Rod Pyle
That's right, all right. Now let's get to the really important story here, because we know that that uh, spacecom never succumbs to clickbait or anything. But saw a headline it's the super moon, blue moon, worm, dragon, maggot moon, or something like that. That's right pushing out because it's important to know these things.

0:12:23 - Tariq Malik
I completely forgot about that. You think?

0:12:26 - Tariq Malik
I would have brought that up. Yeah, no, there is a super moon, a blue moon, coming up on August 19th, as we're recording this. It is one of the weird ones, because this is a bit of an egg on my face. We had a story last year that said that the August super blue moon of that year was the last one until 2037 or whatever. Oops, I know, but it turns out that that was the last two full moons in one calendar month, blue moon until 2037. And that this blue moon is the second and original definition of the blue moon, which is the third full moon in a four full moon season. It's very technical, but like so is this.

We're in the summer season. This is the third full moon of four full moons in the season. You know, normally there's three because there's three months to a quarter out of 12. And so that's this one and I think the next one of this. You know super blue caliber comes in like 2033 or something, according to our columnist, but you know it's going to be a really good time for everyone to get out this weekend. As we're recording it, look at the moon because it's going to look extra full, or it's going to look full a day before, a day after, extra full, or it's gonna look full a day before a day after. So you've got like Sunday, monday, tuesday, to enjoy the splendor of the moon. And what is it? It's the sturgeon moon. I learned that's the largest fish in the United States. I didn't know that, that.

0:13:57 - Rod Pyle
And they're ugly too.

0:13:58 - Tariq Malik
Yeah Well well, it is an American fish, I guess we the way it is an American fish.

0:14:10 - Rod Pyle
I guess we who you calling ugly, mister um so Tariq, is there a person somewhere that you or NASA or somebody pays to sit and figure out, you know? Okay, this is a 357th and a half double blue ice cream something or another moon for this century, but it's important because this is the one where the groundhog pops up and sees the shadow in the moon or something. No, you know these things.

0:14:32 - Tariq Malik
So I always default to, like NASA and farmers almanac. However, I would be loath, I would be remiss, if I did not mention that the whole supermoon phenomena as it is now became ultra popularized in 2010 because of an astrologer that put like a big thing out there and it's like, oh, the supermoon, it's the big thing. Technically, there should only be one supermoon. There's one largest full moon of the year. There can only be one right Like in Highlander, but because they can only be one closest.

But what's happened is that that definition, since this ultra popularizing in 2010, it really grabbed on to the public. They got really excited about it and so NASA now puts the moniker onto any full moon that is within like a day or two of perigee, the point in the lunar orbit when it's closest to Earth, and NASA will call it a supermoon. And if you use that NASA kind of loose definition, this coming supermoon is the first of four consecutive supermoons in a series for the rest of the year, and that's kind of how I approach it. It is a bit kitschy. It is a fun way to celebrate the moon. In fact, september is, I think, international Observer of the Moon Month, or it might be in October I'll have to double check. So just a way to get excited, but I default to NASA and Farmer's Omelette.

0:16:07 - Rod Pyle
Okay, well, Farmer's Omelette. It sounded like you said Farmer's Omelette, Got it? That was a very, very complete answer for a very minimal question on my part. So just hold on to your seats because we're going to be back with Czarina Salido in just a couple of seconds, so stand by. So we are back with Czarina Salido of Taking Up Space and other nonprofits which we're going to hear about. Thank you so much for coming to join us today, CCzarina.

0:16:34 - Czarina Salido
Thank you for having me, rod and Tariq, hi, hi.

0:16:38 - Rod Pyle
It's really great that you could come. I've been looking forward to this. So just to introduce us first to what you do, can you give us an idea of what Taking Up Space is about and we'll go into more depth later but just give us kind of a thumbnail sketch of what it is and what you do, and then we wanna learn about you.

0:16:57 - Czarina Salido
Okay, so Taking Up Space is an astronaut supported nonprofit and what we do is we help with the under-representation of Native American girls in STEM science, technology, engineering and mathematics and we work with girls ages between eight and 16, right before they hit that middle school age. And we have our oldest girl right now is 16, who started the program when she was eight. So we're kind of building yeah, it's so cute so we're building into helping now with the girls who are kind of graduating from our program to go into uh school and try and get them scholarships, trying to get them to go to conferences, put posters out there and give talks while they're in high school so they're ready, um, to get out there in the world when they're graduate and how long?

0:17:48 - Tariq Malik
how long? When did taking up begin again? I'm sorry if I missed that part there but, you've been around for a while.

0:17:54 - Czarina Salido
Yes, it's been a while. So the nonprofit started in 2014 and then the program itself started in 2016. So it took a couple of years for us to figure out what we're going to do with the nonprofit and then, once we got our strive, or got our groove on, that was in a couple years later, when we started off with our first set of girls going to space camp.

0:18:16 - Tariq Malik
And how did you personally get to this point? This is a question that I think Rod and I usually ask all of our guests is to find out how they found space in particular. I mean, is this a subject that you know little CCzarina was really like into that, you kind of just followed it all the way, or is it something that called to you later on? What is your kind of connection to space and maybe to Space Camp and other things that are space adjacent there?

0:18:45 - Czarina Salido
So for me it started off at a young age. I grew up in Tucson and, if you're ever been here, we have big skies. It's a dark sky too, so our lights are at a lower lit than other cities. So I was always fascinated by looking up and looking up at the stars or looking up at the clouds. The Davis-Monthan Air Force Base is also here, so you would see these jets just flying through and it's just hard not to look up. And then, as I got older, I kind of got into other stuff.

But when we started the nonprofit, I went to NASA Social and that was during those two years of us figuring out what to do. So at the NASA Social people were like you're into space and you've never been to space camp and I hadn't even heard of space camp. Right, like it was something Really Mm-hmm. I was just barely getting into that world and a tweet up it was called it was doing NASA social and everyone's like you need to go to space camp. So I went to space camp as an adult and it was awesome. It just it was like being a kid again, but also like having the adult stuff go on, where you got to bond with the other people around you and then going on the simulators. I had so much fun and when I was there I felt like home. You know, it's like my space peeps, my people, this place is so cool.

And shortly after that, I think like a month later, space Fest. And at Space Fest there was a woman in science panel that I went to and everyone was talking about what can we do about women in STEM? How can we address this problem? And just coming back from Space Camp, I was like we need to send girls to space camp Because if I was so enamored by it and I was so felt just good being there, you know, I thought having other girls be there would be a pretty cool thing at a young age. So that's kind of how it went from like little girl looking up at the sky with my grandpa to then getting these opportunities like the NASA. Tweetup.

0:20:51 - Tariq Malik
And I can attest as I've had the opportunity to visit Tucson a few times in my life. It is absolutely spectacular and amazing. And just for our listeners, really quick, zerni, because you mentioned Space Fest, can you just describe like what that was? That kind of was the crystallization point that you were that you mentioned there before.

0:21:10 - Czarina Salido
I mean, that's a, that's a, it's a space conference, but it's like for the public, that kind of thing, right yeah, it was a space conference for the public and you can go for a day or you can go for longer, and the best thing about that was there's astronauts there, like not just one or two, but like what, 15, 20 astronauts in front of you, or you can like look at them in their eye and know that I'm looking at a moon Walker, I am looking into the eyes of someone who went to space, and so going to space fest and being around the people that you just saw in books or heard about, and to actually be able to shake their hand, look them in the eye, it was. It's pretty cool, it's it's a and it's in Arizona right.

0:21:55 - Tariq Malik
Is that is that right or is it in?

0:21:57 - Czarina Salido
It's in Tucson, tucson, yeah, yeah, so it's, it's local for you too.

0:22:00 - Tariq Malik
That's great. Yeah, it's super great. Space comes to you the sky and the astronauts that's awesome.

0:22:06 - Czarina Salido
It's's I. You know, that's the way I like it. Like when things happen like that, where all of a sudden you go to this NASA social and then all of a sudden, a month later is space fest with all these astronauts, and then all of a sudden people are talking about what can we do? And at that time I'm thinking I have this, you know, nonprofit, that we just started, like what are we going to do? And it all just comes together. And I love it when that stuff you know, gi joe, I love it when a good plan comes together, whoever that was the a team yes oh, good lord so.

0:22:39 - Rod Pyle
So tucson itself is kind of a simulator for sunny planet mercury this time of year. But uh, when I went to space camp in 1984, I went to the first adult session. Oh wow yeah, they weren't set for adult journalists at all. So we were sleeping in these, you know, two by four pine bunks, and eating chili, mac and stuff. It was fun but it was weird. But at the time the simulator like they had a shuttle simulator- that was kind of handy, Just like you Rod Just like you.

Oh, tark's back, I haven't. You know, I didn't get that from Isaac for the last however many weeks, okay, anyway, so we're in the shuttle simulator. It's kind of thrown together out of plywood and stuff. So they had the two windows up front and because they were running on, I think, an Atari 400 computer or something, each window had an earth in it. So that's kind of how primitive it was. You know, and you hit the, you know you'd use the, the control, uh, surfaces and stuff, what am I trying to say? The stick to fly and it would kind of there'd be this long delay and then the images sort of scroll up left and then you know the right and so forth. So it's very, very primitive.

The thing I remember that was the most convincing was they actually still had an air bearing chair, which is they may still have it. It's the thing you strap into and it. It has a, a big fan in it, basically, and it lifts up off the floor just enough that it's frictionless. So if you're, if you're trying to grab a shuttle rail or whatever and you don't do it right, you go sliding across the floor and then one of the counselors has to come out and push you back. Hey space camper, you screwed up, so it was very, very primitive. What's the experience like now for these young women I met, just much more sophisticated.

0:24:21 - Czarina Salido
Yes, they have that. I think they call it the five degrees of freedom. Chair.

0:24:25 - Tariq Malik
Yeah.

0:24:27 - Czarina Salido
So they still have that, which is fun. It freedom chair. Yeah, so that, yeah, so they still have that, which is fun. Um, it's from when we started eight years ago to now it's already advanced. So now they're into Mars.

When I went there, you know we're doing space shuttle stuff and now they're doing a Mars type simulator, and the simulators are much different. It's a simulation of you actually flying the capsule and trying to land and crashing. Most people crash and then so cool, so you're prepping In space camp. You're prepping the whole time for the actual mission. So you're just like waking up, going through the steps and on the last day they flip on the lights. And by flip on the lights I mean like the orange glow of Mars comes on.

It's dark in there and they make you like egress out of the shuttle and like on your belly to come out and you're on Mars. It's all orange and it's not expected right, because we were practicing and we didn't know that there's a switch. They flip on where the shuttle vibrates and you hear the noise. Yeah, so it's a full on immersion of space and it's really easy to use your imagination and to pretend you're there, like they have you harnessed. I got to um as a mission specialist. They harnessed me and I was able to shimmy around the shuttle trying to fix a broken solar panel, and so it feels really cool to be like strapped up like that and being, like you know, horizontal and just going through trying to pull yourself to that location where you have to change out your solar panel.

0:26:00 - Rod Pyle
It's fun satark, this is sounding more and more like we have to do an on location episode from space camp.

0:26:07 - Tariq Malik
We should, we should? I went five times. I went five times. Yeah, I was 15, I was the age my daughter is now. The first time that I went and have you sent your daughter? I, we haven't. Can you believe it? So no, that's not, that's on our list. That's on our list to do for sure, especially because she's like, she's like right in the age group that that you're targeting with the uh, with the taking of space too.

0:26:32 - Czarina Salido
Yes, and they have family camp too, so you can do it as a family, which would be kind of fun too. Yeah, see.

0:26:37 - Rod Pyle
Tarek working for spacecom gets all these cool junkets Like let's see what's the one that I remember. Oh, it was the zero gravity credit flight that I was doing the article on, and then suddenly the chief over there says, oh, that's okay, I'll go anyway.

sorry that's no hard feelings there yeah right, yeah, it was a bucket list for me too, except he took my bucket anyway rod, have you done it yet? No, no, the problem is no matter what kind of arc they fly. I'm large enough that I maintain my own gravity. Let's take a quick break here. We'll be right back.

0:27:16 - Czarina Salido
Go nowhere. Maintain your own gravity.

0:27:21 - Rod Pyle
Hey, you know there's nothing like having your own gravitational field. It attracts friends to me. That's how I look at it.

0:27:25 - Czarina Salido
My nickname is the black hole because I eat so much and like food. Any any food around me gets like well and I've seen you, you're thin you know that is so unfair?

0:27:38 - Rod Pyle
yeah, so do I, unfortunately, um. So you know, we've all read the statistics about women, young women in stem in general. But then you look at, um, those statistics for the indigenous American population, which is primarily what you serve, I believe and the decimal moves a couple of positions to the wrong side. So can you talk about that for a minute, both from a standpoint of what those stats are, what they mean, and how that brought you into what you're doing, because I think it's a really great story.

0:28:10 - Czarina Salido
Yes, the stats for women, as you mentioned, going into STEM fields is lower. But if you look at indigenous Native Americans, it's at 1% and lower. Going into STEM fields 1% and lower. And then Native Americans also have the highest. Females have the highest murder rate, kids have the highest. Females have the highest murder rate, kids have the highest suicide rate and they also have the highest high school dropout rate. So, statistically speaking, when you think about the numbers for Native American youth and for Native American women in particular, it's pretty bad. It's actually the worst case scenario, right? The kids have the highest suicide rate, the kids have the highest dropout rate and the women have the highest murder rate.

0:28:55 - Rod Pyle
Excuse me, when you say the highest murder rate, you mean of being killed.

0:28:59 - Czarina Salido
Yes For women. Yeah, the native American women have the highest murder rate. There's actually a, a group it's called. It's a M M I. It's like missing, murdered indigenous women, and you might see it. It's got, um, the logo is a woman like that, but it's, and so you put a hand print with a red hand print to like kind of shut your voice.

Um, the baswayaki reservation is down the it's in Tucson, it's down the road a little bit. They recently sent out a thing saying be careful for human trafficking. Right now there are people on the res that are promising you, you know, hospital stays or or to get some rehab for any type of alcohol problem, and so they're getting these people off of the reservation who have, you know, might have some problems, and they are kidnapping them essentially and they're being human trafficking. So there's actually a thing that came out by the tribe saying don't fall for this, watch out, because right now we are being targeted as to be human trafficking, which is crazy like, but that's where. That's what the target is. So, upon murder rate, suicide rate, drop our rate also. It's um, I guess I don't want to say kidnapping, but it's a human trafficking that we have to be careful with in the reservation right now.

0:30:27 - Rod Pyle
So how did you get involved personally? I mean, what's your relationship with the tribe? What inspired you to get this whole thing going?

0:30:37 - Czarina Salido
I was just trying to find some way to help. I, my background, is in STEM and so it really was just wanting to help and trying to find community. And I am a Budapest on my mom's side, and Budapest are native Americans from Michigan, Mexico, and I'm UMA on my dad's side, which is Bosco Yaki, like a cousin of the Bosco Yaki that are here in Tucson. So my background is I do have native American roots, so that kind of helped me. I do have Native American roots, so that kind of helped me, although I didn't actually realize how much of a percentage of Native American I was until I started working with the kids and when I was around there I started noticing that my culture to the grandpa teaching me about plants and which plants are good, plant medicine, what's good for you know bites. So as I was growing the nonprofit, I personally started growing my own cultural heritage. Cultural heritage it's as a Mexican, female Mexican culture looks down upon being Native American. You know, back in the day they would kill you for the land, so it's better to say that you weren't Native. So if you could pass as not being Native, it was a better way to go. So my family did not claim indigeneity at all as a story I say is, as a kid I wasn't allowed to braid my hair because I would look too indigenous. And now I proudly braid it.

So there has been a definite growth in the path that I went into it. So I went into it just because I want to help people. Just that's just what I do. I can't help it, you know, I just have this thing where I'm urged to help and this was sort of like a calling, I guess. And then, as I was with the tribe, I became more me. I would say I became into who I was as an indigenous woman and it's I love it. I really love the power, uh, the resiliency, that native americans have, what I've learned, like my eagle feather that I keep around my I am. Before we started, I burned some cedar and had a little ceremony and that's just really ground. It's grounded me. It's something that I didn't know I needed and I'm so glad that I have now me.

0:33:10 - Tariq Malik
It's something that I didn't know I needed and I'm so glad that I have now and I imagine for the girls that you work with that there is a celebration there of themselves too.

You know it was easy just to think oh, you help people go to space camp, oh, that's great. You know space camp's fun, you know, and then they're done. You know it's like going to science camp at school it's for like a week and then kids come back and then that's the end of it. But it does seem you know, serving a range of middle school girls all the way through age 16, that you've got a 16-week program, not just a trip to the space camp, much more involved in both these young girls at a formidable time as well as in their development and their well-being. And I'm curious, kind of what other types of themes or activities does the program include, rather than just helping them get to Huntsville, alabama, to check out Space Camp for a week or so? Because it does seem like there's more of a journey there and something that could either foster either a lifelong interest or even like a career, as like you were speaking to earlier, than just like a summer experience for a year or two.

0:34:26 - Czarina Salido
Yeah, exactly. So we have an learn and earn model where you're earning your trip to space camp. You're not just getting it. And what happens with girls in STEM is during that middle school years, is that they lose their confidence somehow. For some reason, they're just not into it, and so part of what we do is confidence building. And so how do we do that? How do we build confidence in these young girls? Body positivity One thing that we incorporate is a little dance break, and it seems silly, right, just to do a dance break, but dancing in front of people can be scary. When you see those dances and you have the girls on one side, the boys on one side, no one's in the middle to dance.

0:35:10 - Tariq Malik
So having that we're having flashbacks now.

0:35:13 - Czarina Salido
Yeah right. So having just a dance break so that you can be silly in front of each other, not you know, take yourself so seriously, that'll give you confidence. Also, when we're teaching STEM, we don't just teach STEM, we bring in indigenous values. So if we're talking about, like, planting seeds or agriculture or what we kind of thing we can plant in space, we take it back to the indigenous roots. Well, what did our ancestors plant? What kind of land did they have? What kind of situations did they have that they needed to, you know, get water, or what did they do in those situations?

So we're kind of giving them their indigeneity and showing how awesome they are for being indigenous, because Native Americans are scientists with all the things that develops, plus the body positivity, then the STEM, lesson, so, lesson. So they get confidence, a lot of confidence, whether it's like intellectual confidence, uh, confidence in having brown skin, and confidence in your body. So I think those three things make it so that when they do get to space camp and it's big and scary that they at least feel excuse, excuse me a little bit confident and know that they're okay and they're going to be just fine. So that's a really huge part of our model is to make sure that we instill that confidence in the kids. Because physics is hard, calculus is hard, you might fail sometimes, but that's okay.

0:36:47 - Tariq Malik
That's a lifelong lesson, for sure.

0:36:49 - Rod Pyle
Yeah, and she knows this because she actually got a degree in physics instead of just stumbling through it like you and I did.

0:36:55 - Tariq Malik
Wow, wow, well, I mean, we've talked so amazing, we've compared differential equations.

0:37:00 - Czarina Salido
I love Diffin Q. Yay for Diffin Q.

0:37:03 - Rod Pyle
We've compared notes on how we got into journalism and in both cases I think it was because we either failed or had to retake calculus at least once. So in my own case it was astronomy at UCLA and somehow I didn't get the memo a year and a half till a year and a half. In that it was all math and I got the differential equations and it's like you know, you see that differently than I do. I'm coming up with a different answer. So, yeah, it was a good thing I moved on.

I have a big question coming, so I'm going to go to a quick break and we'll be right back for my big question. Stand by. So I'm interested. I was looking at your board of advisors and your general board and also your partners list. I'm interested to know. Well, first of all, you have Hoot Gibson on your board, who's probably the closest thing to an astronaut saint with a halo I've ever met Just this amazing, sweet, good-hearted guy. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about your board and what relationship you have with NASA, both for Space Camp and beyond. You have with NASA both for Space Camp and beyond.

0:38:10 - Czarina Salido
Oh, yes, so Hoot is the president of our vice president of our board. Our board consists of Bruce Bailey, who is a professor, emeritus math professor, and he is currently in Ghana doing a oh, what's it called Peace Corps? A Peace Corps mission over there, right. A um, oh, what's it called peace corps? A peace corps mission over there, right. And, as a retired professor, I can't wait till he comes back because he's doing all sorts of math programs over there and he's going to come back with so many new ideas and the culture that he's going to bring back is going to be pretty awesome. So I'm really excited for the work that he's doing over there and when he comes back, to share all the stuff that he learned while being in Ghana.

Peace Corps, hoot Gibson, as you said, commander of space shuttle four times and flew five times. Just case you didn't know that he is amazing. As you said, halo, he has helped with everything. Amazing. As you said, halo, he has helped with everything. Having him on the board has really given us um, oh, what's the word called? Um, uh, oh, I'm sorry I'm drawing a blank, but he's given us like we're somebody, right if we have right if we haveot legitimacy.

He's made us legitimate. So having him on the board has helped out because he goes to space camp and he speaks a lot, and that legitimacy then made it so that other um astronauts wanted to help us, like nicole stott. She's been amazing. She's talked to the girls. We do zoom. We've done zoom with her um. We've had, uh, john harrington, who's recently. I have his patch. So how the astronauts have been involved with us is we have fundraisers, so we have these fundraisers with John Harrington. There's Hoots Patch. I love it. There's no use in dying. All tensed up, right?

0:40:11 - Rod Pyle
Good story he's got a hell of a point there, yeah.

0:40:14 - Czarina Salido
So we have Fred Hayes, we have astronauts just help us in funding us because, as you guys know, maybe running a non-profit is all about funding right and about yeah, and I was going to ask about the funding because you know, clearly as a non-profit, you need to find it somewhere.

0:40:34 - Tariq Malik
And and I was looking at your sponsors uh, for the organization, I did see all the astronauts there, including Mike Mullane, the first astronaut I ever met, and I met him at Space Camp. Mike Mullane is awesome, but there were some other folks here. You've got the Pasquayaki tribe, you've got AIAA and whatnot, and I'm just curious how do you go about finding the funds that you need on a regular basis? I mean, you've got this stable of very dedicated supporters, but do you have, like, other types of events? Can people donate through, I guess, the website and that type of thing? How can people find you to support the project and the work that you're doing?

0:41:18 - Czarina Salido
As you mentioned, we have wonderful supporters, supporters that have been donating from eight years ago, specifically the space hipsters and and people who are in the space hipster community. It's a facebook group of over 50 000 people and we are together with them. We sell our patches, and so that's part of our funding. That's a huge part of our funding. I think space hipsters, uh, gives us about 80 percent of our funding. It's like most of it, and it's through yeah, it's through these fundraisers. We do put on fundraisers here in town.

Just to get the word out, in January, terry Vert's going to be in town and so, yeah, so the Fox Theater is a historic theater in downtown and we are going to work with them to do a workshop with some kids Maybe their parents are still looking at that and the workshop is going to be about corn Native American corn and it's a theater and about popping corn and heat induction, so how you know, corn pops using radiation or convection or conduction.

So we're going to have popcorn in a microwave, popcorn, some Jiffy Pop, so we're doing stuff like that, and that was through a grant from the Tucson Electric Power Company. So we are just I go online and I look for grants, try to find grants that can fund our events. And then we have our events, we have our fundraisers with our patches, and then people also donate, like you said, online we have a lot of supporters also donate stuff. Like, we had a huge donation recently from a couple that donated Legos, a bunch of videos, and so what I do with that is I distribute it to the school and I can go to the school, I can look at, you know, find different places that and students that would benefit from having these things that people send me to give to students. So that's a big part of what we do is not just dollar donation but in kind donations where I can get stuff and then give it to people kids in need.

0:43:18 - Tariq Malik
Can I ask do you sell your logo as a patch, Because I think it's adorable?

0:43:23 - Czarina Salido
Yes, we've done two. Isn't this cute? We've done two runs Chris Spain and Brian Matney helps out with this and I haven't done a run. We did two runs with it back in like 2018.

0:43:36 - Tariq Malik
And so I think this is going to be our next fundraiser, because I've been having people ask me and I'm down to like five, so yeah, for the people who are just listening, can you describe to them real briefly, like what it looks like, because it's kind of got an iconic look, but it's also very of the organization itself.

0:43:53 - Czarina Salido
Yeah. So we have a riff off of a Tuvian man and I believe there was also somebody else who did a patch like this with Nicole Stott was on right Rod shaking his head, and so we have the Native American girl dressed in her traditional as you can see here I'm kind of have the traditional shirt on and then, of course, juxtaposed with her being in space, and then we have the cactus. So it's just a really good representation of what we stand for native and girls going to space. And I always say I don't know if we're going to get an astronaut from this, but maybe one day we will. But if not, at least I would like to see them graduate from high school, not commit suicide, not get kidnapped and not get murdered. So that's the goal, but hopefully they'll go on to be, you know, astronaut. One day we'll see them up at Morse.

0:44:48 - Rod Pyle
So the programs range, if I if I read correctly on the website, between 16 and 32 weeks.

0:44:54 - Czarina Salido
Yes, so we've been doing, we've shifted. So I was doing in-person every every week. I'm going to go every other week, starting in September. So I was doing in person every every week. I'm going to go every other week, starting in September. So it's gonna be about 16 weeks and we started in person. But then zoom COVID hit, so we went on to zoom and we just had every week we'd had zoom lessons.

We're kind of switching gears. This year we'll start again in September and it's going to be bi weekly and we'll just go out to the res and do what we do. We're kind of considering doing a hybrid where we do some while we're teaching while I'm teaching, I can have the kids on zoom. But we're still kind of looking into how we're going to proceed for this next semester. We've, like I said, this is eight years and 10 years. We just had our uh, july 29th is the end of our fiscal year, so this is our 10 year anniversary and we're kind of, yeah, looking back to see what can we change, what's working, what's not working and how are we going to go forward. So I'm, um, not going to be teaching every week, I'm going to be going to every other week, possibly, possibly, hybrid over Zoom, and my ultimate goal would be to have space camp in Tucson, because, yeah, that would be super fun.

0:46:08 - Rod Pyle
That would be super fun. And, of course, then you have to build it, which will be quite a project. And for those of you who don't live in one of the states that has reservations, res is short sort of inside lingo for reservation reservation says the res it means, it means the reservation, um.

So if, if I'm one of these students and I and I wish I had been where the heck were you when I was going through school and hating my life, oh, I know you weren't even close to being born yet, but it's. You know, it's a really formative time in in some ways good, some ways very challenging. Um, you know, people, it's a really formative time in some ways good, some ways very challenging. You know, people are hitting puberty and all that kind of stuff.

0:46:48 - Czarina Salido
Middle school kids.

0:46:50 - Rod Pyle
It can be a challenging time to teach, I'm sure, but what would, on a given week or two week interval, what would be the sort of typical day they'd spend with you?

0:47:02 - Czarina Salido
Oh, it would just be an hour to an hour and a half, so it's it would just be our STEM lesson, where we know we would talk about right now I'm really into agriculture. We started a community garden at a local school, so we would talk about, you know, corn, something simple like that, and the indigeneity of, like the three sisters, like corn, squash and beans, and how they grow together and how they um nurture each other as far as, like, one will give off nitrogen, one will give off whatever um it needs, and then they grow together. So I would kind of go into something like let's talk about corn and let's talk about its properties and let's talk about the native american corn that we have. There's a corn here in tucson that's from the tona autumn tribe, where it grows quickly and it ripens quickly, and that's because of the monsoons. It's super dry, it's super hot in Tucson, 110. But then in August we get monsoons, so there is a corn that was raised made to be a short lifespan, so something like that would be cool for space. So then we would add that how would this be good on Mars? How some a vegetable like this? Or having the three sisters up on mars, how could that grow and what we would have to do to have a system in place like that on a habitat that's not earth and so it would be. And then after that we'd be like, okay, guys, ready for your break, and we push out our chairs and have a little dance break and then it's story time.

Something that's really important with um indigenous um history and indigenous culture is storytelling. You know, there wasn't books, so we we do some sort of storytelling. I have a few stories in my repertoire. I love getting storytellers um on to tell stories because there's just something captivating about hearing a story. And the stories are always kind of messed up, like. I have this story that I love to tell about this little rabbit who he loves playing the drum, and everyone gets mad at him because he's playing the drum. So all the animals come out and they like literally tear him apart. They tear off his arms, they tear off his legs, they tear off his tail and in the end the bunny flies away, all mangled up and he's still playing the drum. And the question is, how is he still playing the drum? And it's because he has heart. So you know, you have stories right. So the story is.

0:49:41 - Rod Pyle
A story I wish I had heard when I was going to film school, before I started working in Hollywood, because it sounds so appropriate and it's interesting. You mentioned this. This is kind of an aside, but when I was in grad school I was helping a PhD student work on his thesis project, which was about the power of story. His actual experiment was, like you know do participants want to help in deciding the outcome of the story, which anybody who had ever worked in in media, especially fiction, could have told him a big resounding? No people like to sit down and hear the chief by the campfire talk about the big hunt or something. We don't want to say what the ending was. We want to hear it from him because that's a big reveal.

But increasingly there's a lot of books and seminars and so forth all dealing with the power of storytelling. From what you're talking about, all the way up through C-suite executives telling each other their stories. That's something that goes way, way back. We're going to take one more break and then we'll be back with Tarek's next burning question. I can see it burning in you there, pal. We'll be back with Tarek's next burning question. I can see it burning in you there, pal, we'll be right back, so stand by and don't burn.

0:50:48 - Tariq Malik
Well, Zarin, I have kind of a follow-up to the conversation we were just having and that's kind of how your program with Taking Up Space fits in, with just the ongoing traditions, the traditional views of the indigenous population that you're, you know, hoping to serve. It sounds like from what you were talking about, like storytelling and that importance, that there's a lot of hand in hand or partnerships between the two. But I'm curious, do you find any friction at all, or is it really a bit of finding the best of all of those worlds and getting them to work together?

0:51:28 - Czarina Salido
Interesting. They definitely go in hand in hand. Like Rod was saying, about a good story, captivating people, captivating the kids. So you do have to have a good story and also to to mix it in with the STEM. You know, when you're learning math, math and science can be a little bit dry. So if you put a story to it, not just an indigenous way but just like a real world application, you know that kind of brings a little bit math, kind of comes alive. So it's a combination of having knowing that stem can be really dry and try to make it come alive, knowing that there's a lot of really good stories.

There's, rod you were saying if you have Native American tribe in your state, there are 260 tribes in the US. So the odds are is you probably do have a tribe in your state and there's some. There is going to be a res somewhere around there or definitely some local people, indigenous customs, values. You know the land. So combining STEM storytelling, the indigeneity it is, it is like a little dance that you have to do, but there's also um can be some negativity, like some stories are only some tribes only have storytelling in january or in the winter months, not january. In the winter months. You're only allowed to tell stories during the winter. So there are some aspects of different cultures, Some cultures you can't look at an owl, like you know you're not just owls are bad luck. You can't whistle at night. So there's a lot of customs that you have to incorporate and look at and make sure that you're not crossing a line and that you're respectful of that personal tribes value.

During the eclipse, a lot of um Navajo Dine, they weren't out looking at the eclipse. That was a time for you know, to go and inside or reflect on what's happening. So, and there's also gatekeeping. Like there's a lot of knowledge that and I say gatekeeping but I've had these arguments like it's kind of a good thing and it's kind of a bad thing there are some knowledge that isn't to be shared out of the tribe or to certain individuals. So there you have to be respectful of knowing like I can't ask. I mean I could ask someone who's an ashanabi to do a story out of winter time, but they would probably have to do a little thing saying this isn't what we don't usually tell stories at this time. So stuff like that has definitely it's a line. You know, it's like putting together all the fun stuff, plus also knowing that there's some cultural things that you have to be respectful of, depending on what tribe you're working with some cultural things that you have to be respectful of, depending on what tribe you're working with.

0:54:29 - Rod Pyle
So, in sort of wrap this up, can you tell us what some of your future plans are, what you'd like to expand? You know what you're looking specifically to do and what some of your current needs are.

0:54:35 - Czarina Salido
So, yes, our future plans, hopefully, would be to get a space camp in Tucson to continue our program, make sure that it's strong, make sure that we have girls that maybe want to come back and teach. Um, I have a book coming out with hoot that I I forgot to talk about I saw I was going to mention that towards the end.

0:54:55 - Rod Pyle
I saw it on amazon.

0:54:56 - Czarina Salido
That's exciting yes, um, and also a thing that I've been really wanting to do is I want to have an area on our website that has STEM lessons that are indigenized. That way, if anyone wants to do a STEM lesson that has a Native American aspect, they can just go to our site and look it up. I've done so many lessons and they're just like scattered in my computer and I'm like it would be really smart if I just had a place I could go to that has these STEM lessons. That brings a little bit of a native perspective. So I would love to tackle that, to have a bunch of indigenized STEM lessons up there. As I mentioned, we have the Terry Burt event in January. It's really exciting. What else I think that's it for now.

0:55:44 - Rod Pyle
That's good, that that's. That's more than enough. I well. I want to thank you very much for coming by and thank everybody for listening to Episode 124. This week in space, the taking up space edition, and a big tip of the hat to Serena for your work and also to space hipsters for for their support, Because I know having 60,000 people on your team is a big deal and it's an amazing thing that Emily's done over there.

0:56:11 - Czarina Salido
And Lois. Thank you to Lois and Lois. Yes, of course.

0:56:14 - Rod Pyle
Lois Honeycutt and actually a bunch of others. CCzarina, where would we go to get more information on what you're doing and what your needs are? So, CCzarina, where would we go to get more information on what you're doing and what your needs are? And maybe, just maybe, some of our beloved listeners will donate, which would be a good thing, because I know I'm going to.

0:56:29 - Czarina Salido
Oh, thank you, you can go to takingupspace.org and that is our website where you can get more information, and we accept donations on PayPal and there's a link on there that you can donate to us. Uh, accept, uh donations on paypal and there's a link on there that you can donate to us. Uh, if anybody is looking to write grants or has any ways for funding, we're always looking for support and for sponsorship for fundraisers, so anyway, you want to help, even actually, if you just want to do something like look up who the tribe in your city is or who's uh that was there, like that would be a really cool thing to do too and Tariq, my dear friend, welcome back.

0:57:07 - Rod Pyle
Where can we find you slinging electrons, the bad guys these days?

0:57:10 - Tariq Malik
because I know that's what you do well, you can find me at uh space.com, as always, and thank you, CCzarina, as well, for from my my site too. I really appreciated the the conversation. But, um, but you can find me at space.com this weekend. We're watching uh progress. What is it? 89 arrive at the international space station uh, with so much needed supplies, because there's two extra people there, like we talked about earlier uh, and we don't know when they're coming back.

Uh with, uh, with Starliner or not. Um and and this weekend, for all of you gamers out there, I will be playing Fortnite, because it's a brand new season with Doctor Doom and all of the Marvel heroes.

0:57:48 - Czarina Salido
It's going to be very exciting.

0:57:50 - Tariq Malik
So I'm going to be doing that and, of course, recuperating from COVID. So almost there, almost there, we're almost there.

0:57:56 - Rod Pyle
How many times have you?

0:57:57 - Tariq Malik
had it now. This is it.

0:58:02 - Rod Pyle
I managed four years. Oh, my God.

0:58:03 - Tariq Malik
Four years to be made it. I went on one cruise and that's it.

0:58:05 - Rod Pyle
My next will be my fifth. All right, and you can always find me, of course. I know Well, it's a hobby. You can find me at pilebooks.com or at adastramagazine.com, which I had it Remember. Anytime you could drop us a line at twis@twit.tv. That's T-W-I-S@twit.tv. One of us will answer you. No, it'll probably be me, because Tarek doesn't answer emails often enough.

We welcome your comments, suggestions and ideas, and new episodes of this podcast publish every Friday afternoon. You're a favorite podcatcher, so make sure to subscribe. Tell your friends and give us reviews. We'll take whatever you want. Thumbs up, six bananas, whatever it is that they they use for their review currency. You can also head to our website at twit.tv/twis. Finally, don't forget, you can get all the great programming with video streams and other things you won't see elsewhere. So like secret content on the twit network, ad free if you join Club TWiT, which can be yours for as little as seven dollars a month, and given the amount of stuff they offer, that's a heck of a deal. So don't be shy. You've heard leo talk about the tough times facing podcasters, so stand up or, in my case, sit down and be counted. You can also follow the TWiT Tech Podcast network at twit on Twitter and on Facebook and TwitTV on Instagram. Thank you everybody and we'll see you next week. Bye-bye.