Conversations with Michelle Lucas

Today we’d like to introduce you to Michelle Lucas.

Hi Michelle, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
As a young child I fell in love with space but didn’t have many opportunities to find ways to cultivate that. I was fortunate to have a Mother who did all she could within limited means and opportunities to help me pursue my passion. I became the first in my family to go to college and went to work at NASA’s Johnson Space Center after graduation. There I worked in Mission Operations as a Flight Controller and a Technical Instructor for Astronauts. 10 years ago I started Higher Orbits as a way to give back and to help inspire students. Higher Orbits is a non-profit with the mission to inspire and engage high-school students through the use of spaceflight, in hands-on, project based learning experiences that are designed to promote Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM) and prepare them for future academic and career success by building confidence, perseverance, teamwork, leadership, critical thinking, creativity, and communication skills. www.HigherOrbits.org

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Smooth? Oh definitely not! Being a kid who was in love with space many many decades ago in a place that wasn’t talking about space or honestly even going to college or dreaming big was a struggle from the start! I had no idea how to go about figuring college out. People don’t understand how difficult it is to figure college out when you don’t have anyone who has “been there done that” before to help you.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m known for being the person who used to teach Astronauts about living in space! And then I am known for being the person who went from doing that to starting a nonprofit to inspire the next generation of STEMists, Explorers, and Astronauts!

I run Higher Orbits and we’ve been in existence for 10 years. I run our flagship program Go For Launch! where students work with an Astronaut and compete to have their ideas launched into space. This space inspired STEM event can be truly life changing for students.

Go For Launch!

We have run this program 93 times (as of 10 October) in 23 states which has resulted in 24 student experiments being launched to be conducted in space!

I am proud of the fact that a little girl from the South-side area of Chicago who was often laughed at for dreaming so big, has become someone who has been part of the space industry for more than 25 years.

I also run a consulting company for space that is called Space Inspired Solutions and with a business partner run an Astronaut Management Agency – uniphi space agency https://uniphigood.com/space/

Who else deserves credit in your story?
My Mom has always been my biggest cheerleader and always did everything she could to help me reach for the stars. At a time when there wasn’t space anything to be found (very different than it is now) where I grew up nor was there an online option, she scoured bookstores to find me space books, hunted every store for anything space related at all, and became such a regular at the Museum of Science in Industry of Chicago gift shop that she had to ask them to find new things to bring in because she’d already bought me all of those things! She always believed in me.

In college when I was at Purdue, one of my most formative experiences was doing undergraduate research on NASA’s KC-135 aircraft. Professor Steven Collicott for the Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering Department was our team’s mentor and to this day, I consider him a mentor. I’ve had the privilege of continuing to work with him in various capacities over the years and I know he is a formative force in my space career!

I’ve always had a hard time with being known as an entrepreneur but one of the great space entrepreneurs, who I admire incredibly (and is also in the Denver area), Mark Sirangelo, worked hard to show me that I am indeed an entrepreneur and has encouraged and mentored me through the last 9 years offering advice and a sounding board for me and has always been a huge cheerleader of Higher Orbits.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.HigherOrbits.org
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Higherorbits
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HigherOrbits
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/higher-orbits-foundation
• Twitter: https://x.com/HigherOrbits
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@higherorbits