"We are not doing our job," NASA Deputy Administrator Dava Newman told a roomful of aerospace engineers in Huntsville Thursday. "I can put it clearly on us."
An aerospace engineer herself, Newman was speaking to the 9th Von Braun Space Symposium about the hurdles the profession puts in front of women and minority students. The conference finished Thursday at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH).
"We said, 'You have to be the best and brightest in calculus and math and physics.' Well, how intimidating is that?" Newman asked. "No, no, no. I say it's a different conversation. 'You want to find life in the universe? You want to build rockets? Then, you're in.'"
Instead of filtering students out, Newman said government, academia and industry today are looking for ways "to filter every single one of those young folks in."
Change conversation
"We change the conversation and say, 'You know what? Math, calculus, physics? Those are tools. So, sure you need 'em, but that's not where the focus is. The focus Is solving these huge problems we have."
What kind of problems was she talking about? The big theme of this week's conference is preparing to go to Mars. A few hours after Newman spoke, a chemical engineer and astronaut challenged students in a luncheon audience to think about the problem of getting a rocket off the Earth.
It takes so much fuel to reach low-Earth orbit - 85 percent of the spacecraft's weight, more or less - that there's little room for everything else. How do you reach another planet and survive?
Newman called Mars "the biggest exploration challenge that humanity has ever embarked upon" and said it will take "a lot of collaboration, more creative thinking and a commitment to being really open and flexible."
First woman Phd
Newman is the first woman to earn a Phd in aerospace biomedical engineering. "So I know what it's like to be that person," she said. Today, women make up less than 30 percent of engineering Phds, African-Americans less than 5 percent, Hispanics less than 5 percent.
"The numbers are nowhere near where we want them to be," she said. "And we're increasing 1-2 percent per year?"
It's not good enough to solve the problems of getting to Mars or the problems facing the Earth, she said. So, the professions are trying "to flip the conversation."
Solve the problems
If young people see themselves helping solve the world's problems, Newman said afterward, engineers should respond, "OK, well you know an engineer does that, and here are the tools. You take your math, your calculus and they're just tools. You need to be proficient, but you don't need to be the best student in class at that.
"You need to be proficient," she repeated," because those are my tools, but it's really much more about the passion. We solve problems. We're going to solve some of the world's problems."
Engineering exists "to serve humanity," Newman said. "I take that very seriously."