African-American NASA Astronaut Bernard Harris: Remembering His Historic Spacewalk and His Work Today to Progress Diversity in NASA

By: Vanessa Guigon, Communications Department Intern

Image courtesy of NASA

Bernard A. Harris Jr. made history when he became the first African-American to perform a spacewalk, specifically a 4-hour and 39-minute spacewalk, during the STS-63 mission in 1995. He celebrated his 65th birthday on Saturday June 26, 2021. It is important to honor Harris’s accomplishments and recognize the growing achievements of African-Americans in space. Let us first take a look at Harris’s path to becoming an astronaut and conducting his legendary spacewalk.

Harris’s life, which has led him to become accomplished in many fields, prepared him well to become a NASA astronaut. He was born on June 26, 1956 in Temple, Texas. He received his MD degree in 1982 and then completed his residency training in 1985 at the Mayo Clinic. After his residency training, Harris went on to complete a National Research Council Fellowship at NASA Ames Research Center in California, finishing his fellowship in 1987 before joining the NASA Johnson Space Center as a clinical scientist and flight surgeon. While at NASA Ames Research Center, Harris conducted research in musculoskeletal physiology and developed in-flight medical devices to help lengthen the time astronauts can spend in space, including focusing on devices that combat bone loss and muscle atrophy. In 1988, Harris then trained as a flight surgeon at the Aerospace School of Medicine in Texas. According to NASA, he was selected by NASA in 1990 and became an astronaut in 1991. As one of the few African-American astronauts in NASA before Harris joined in 1990, Potomac Institute Senior Fellow and Board of Regents member Major General Charles Frank Bolden Jr. (USMC-Ret.) viewed himself as a mentor to Harris, recalling that “when Bernard came in, I gave him the benefit of things I had seen and sometimes we would fly together on a NASA T-38, with our families even getting to know each other.”

Harris’s spacewalk in 1995 was a historic event for many reasons. Before his infamous 1995 flight, Harris was the crew representative for Shuttle Software in the Astronaut Office Operations Development Branch and in 1991 was a mission specialist on STS-55, Spacelab D-2. In 1995, Harris was the Payload Commander on STS-63, which was a unique mission since it included a rendezvous with Mir, the Russian Space Station. The STS-63 mission was also legendary because Eileen M. Collins was able to make history as the first female shuttle pilot. Major General Bolden said that Harris’s spacewalk on STS-63 was “a momentous and historic occasion, and Bernard did an incredible job performing the spacewalk.” Major General Bolden was the Commander on STS-60, which was the first US/Russia shuttle mission, and he believes that the second US/Russia shuttle mission, STS-63, was critical to “demonstrate that our teams could successfully collaborate over a period of time, which was important because the only space station available to humanity at the time was Mir.”

Since Harris left NASA in 1996, he has spent his life dedicated to emphasizing the importance of education to younger generations. It was also in 1996 that he received his master’s degree in biomedical science from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. He went on to lead many companies that stress the importance of science and education, and became the CEO and Managing Partner of Vesalius Ventures, Inc., a venture capital firm. In August 1998, Harris founded The Harris Foundation, a non-profit whose mission surrounds providing underserved populations initiatives that enhance education, improve health, and generate sustainable wealth. As the CEO, his leadership revolves around raising teacher effectiveness and student achievement, according to The Harris Foundation. In addition, Harris is the CEO of the National Math and Science Initiative, where he states that “As a dreamer, I often encourage young people that ‘nothing is impossible, if you believe in your dreams.’ For that to happen, we as educators and education advocates must provide students with the tools to empower their dreams. Ultimately, we all benefit through those accomplishments.” Harris serves on many boards, including the Board of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Math and Science Initiative, and the Board of Directors for U.S. Physical Therapy (Nasdaq: USPH). In addition, Harris has received multiple awards, including the NASA Award of Merit, the NASA Equal Opportunity Medal, and the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal.

The importance of education is not only prioritized by Harris, but also other former astronauts such as Major General Bolden. Major General Bolden and Harris work together in the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, which raises money to provide scholarships to students in STEM fields to encourage more young people to pursue STEM. According to Major General Bolden, Harris recognized the need to expand the diversity of scholarship applicants and decided to have astronauts from the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame raise money each year to provide scholarships for students from historically Black colleges and universities. Major General Bolden said, “We can’t inspire anyone until we inform them.” Growing up in segregated South Carolina, Major General Bolden felt limited in the occupations available to him. Harris and Major General Bolden, through their foundations that highlight the importance of education, want to “inform kids of color, underrepresented minorities, and women of what is available to them.”

Major General Bolden and Harris are among many other accomplished African-American NASA astronauts. Let’s take a look at some of those achievements. Frederick D. Gregory piloted a space shuttle in 1985 and was also the first African-American Deputy Administrator in NASA from 2002-2005. In 2006, the STS-116 mission on the space shuttle Discovery was the first time that two African-American astronauts flew in space together. In 2009, Major General Bolden became NASA’s first African-American Administrator, serving in that position until 2017. In December 2020, NASA chose 18 astronauts to create the Artemis Team, which included three African-American astronauts: Victor J. Glover, Jessica A. Watkins, and Stephanie D. Wilson. In 2020, NASA announced that Astronaut Jeanette Epps will be the first African-American woman to crew on the Boeing Starliner-1 mission to the International Space Station, with the flight expected to launch in 2021.

Even after acknowledging the many growing achievements in NASA’s diversity, it is important to recognize the progress left to be made in NASA. Major General Bolden states that “it’s not a question that we do not have enough” underrepresented people occupying jobs across all different levels in NASA. The importance of informing young children of the possibilities open to them starts with setting an example. Major General Bolden’s mentor, who inspired him to become an astronaut, was the “Late Great Doctor Ron McNair,” an African-American astronaut. Major General Bolden initially told McNair that he would not apply to NASA because “they would never pick me” and McNair responded saying “How do you know if you don’t try?” McNair’s encouragement and example led Major General Bolden to apply to NASA, and he became an astronaut in 1981. Major General Bolden emphasizes the importance of reaching out to young kids and speaking to them so that “they do not put an artificial limitation on themselves the way I did until I met McNair.”According to Major General Bolden, “We have to inform young kids about what’s available to them, give them the confidence in themselves to not let anybody tell them what they can’t do, and encourage them to be brave enough to accept the risk of failure,” demonstrating that astronauts such as him and Harris see the key to progress is through education.

NASA Astronaut Sally Ride- A Pioneer for Women

By Vanessa Guigon, Communications Department Intern

Sally Ride was a trailblazer for women when on June 18, 1983, 38 years ago, she became the first American woman in space, breaking the gender barrier. In 1983, she and her crewmates flew the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-7. According to NASA, as of March 2021, 65 women have flown in space, demonstrating how the presence of more women in space highlights Ride’s legacy. In addition, female astronauts have been able to achieve higher ranks, with Peggy Whitson being the first female ISS Commander in April 2008. More recently, according to NASA, Jessica Meir and Christina Koch accomplished the first all-female spacewalk in 2019. On June 21, 2021, Col. Pam Melroy was sworn in as the NASA Deputy Administrator.

About a decade before her death, Sally Ride founded her own company, Sally Ride Science, in 2001 to encourage young children to pursue STEM fields in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. According to Sally Ride Science, Ride founded the company with her partner Tam O’Shaughnessy along with her colleagues Karen Flammer, Terry McEntee, and Alann Lopes. In addition, according to NASA, Ride wrote many science books geared towards children. One of her books, The Third Planet, won the American Institute of Physics Children's Science Writing Award in 1995.

Sally Ride was born on May 26, 1951 in Los Angeles, California. As she was finishing her Ph.D. in physics at Stanford University, Ride found a newspaper that had an ad calling for applications to be a NASA astronaut. Ride ended up applying for the job, and she was one of the 35 people, out of the total 8,000 applicants, selected to join. As a member of NASA in 1978, Ride went on to aid in the development of the space shuttle’s robotic arm. According to NASA, Ride was one of six women who joined NASA in 1978, and she was the first of them to fly in 1983. Another woman in the NASA class of 1978 was Dr. Kathryn Sullivan, a Senior Fellow and Board of Regents member of the Potomac Institute. Dr. Sullivan, in her NASA career, became the first American woman to walk in space in 1984 during the STS-41G mission, which was the first flight to include two women: Dr. Sullivan and Sally Ride. Dr. Sullivan went on to fly on three space shuttle missions, including the Hubble Space Telescope mission, before leaving NASA in 1993.

After Ride’s historic trip to space in 1983, as reported by NASA, Ride faced a significant amount of media attention. She was asked questions such as "Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?" To which, Ride replied, "one thing I probably share with everyone else in the astronaut office is composure." Ride eventually retired from NASA in 1987, when she then joined the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University as a science fellow. Then in 1989, according to NASA, she became a physics professor at the University of California- San Diego, and she became the director of the California Space Institute. In 2003, Ride was inducted into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame. After Ride’s work with Sally Ride Science, authoring her own books, and accomplishing many other achievements, Ride died at the age of 61 on June 23, 2012 after about a year and a half long battle with pancreatic cancer.

As described by NASA, Sally Ride was a phenomenal woman who helped pave the way for future women in their space careers. With the anniversary of her celebrated flight in 1983, it is a reminder of the progress that has been made in the fight for equality but is also a call to continue the work that has been started.

Congress Needs a Global Competition Caucus

Today’s legislative stovepipes are hobbling America’s ability to compete with China.

Senior Research Fellow Tim Welter featured at Defense One, exceprt below:

If the United States expects to continue to thrive as a global leader, economically and otherwise, committees in Congress must find a way to work better across their strict jurisdictional stovepipes to invigorate a societal-level understanding and approach to great power competition.

Our era—the Information Age—is dominated by unprecedented global interconnectedness and economic interdependence. A single person can speak to millions of others via social media. A small ripple in one nation’s markets can produce a tsunami elsewhere. And state actors have developed cost-effective means of political and economic manipulation and coercion. America’s institutions are starting to grapple with these new dynamics in global competition, but the response is far from synchronized.

See full article at Defense one Here

Technological Competition with Asia Unites a Polarized Congress

By Stephanie Carr and Theodore Bennett, Communications Interns

On Tuesday, June 8, the Senate approved the Endless Frontier Act (S. 1260), a bill designed to boost domestic innovation and production in microelectronics, artificial intelligence, and quantum sciences. It creates a new directorate focused on quantum sciences and artificial intelligence under the National Science Foundation (NSF). The bill also states that the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) will develop strategies designed to augment science, research, and innovation to improve national economic security. The bill allots $50 billion to the Department of Commerce to promote domestic semiconductor production. It establishes regional hubs of technology that will support country-wide technological innovation and award grants as incentives for further development and manufacturing.

One of the Endless Frontier Act’s focuses is improving microelectronics innovation in order to better compete with China. However, the 117th Congress is not the first to pass an act designed to strengthen America by advancing microelectronic capabilities. During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, Japan was recognizably the biggest threat to the American semiconductor industry. Congress passed a small bill called the Sematech Act of 1987 to revitalize the US microelectronics industry, making the US a more formidable competitor. Now that China has risen to be America’s premier rival in the microelectronics field, today’s Congress is responding in a similar fashion. Although the Sematech Act and the Endless Frontier Act are similar in goal, the latter is better funded and more pervasive throughout the entire industry. Unlike the Sematech Act, the Endless Frontier Act does not exclusively focus on microelectronics. The competition between the US and Japan in the 1980s was solely industrial. However, the competition between the US and China expands beyond industry and into the territory of economic and military competition. These additional realms of competition further incentivize China and the US to outdo one another. The challenge in microelectronics is not only coming from China, however, but also from Taiwan and South Korea. By 2030, 50% of global semiconductor production will come from Taiwan and China. The Endless Frontier Act aims to incentivize more semiconductor production in the US.

Although the US is competing with China, neither state is as strong in semiconductor fabrication capability as South Korea or Taiwan. The US is closely allied with South Korea and Taiwan, not with China, meaning that Chinese competition is more threatening than South Korean or Taiwanese competition. Congress seems less concerned with beating the giants in the semiconductor industry than it is with accelerating its technological capabilities faster than China. The bill recognizes that US national security will be strengthened through economic strength, not only through military strength. As mentioned previously, it allots $50 billion (out of its $110 billion budget) to the Department of Commerce, communicating the bill’s economic focus. Additionally, the newly proposed NSF directorate will take a much more proactive approach to research and innovation. While traditionally the NSF has focused on early stage academic research, this new directorate will be far more focused on technological development. Today, America is lagging behind Asia in fabricating semiconductors. The Vice President of Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, Dr. Michael Fritze, describes the economic playing field, saying, “If you take a snapshot today, South Korea and Taiwan are the dominant figures in the semiconductor fabrication industry.” Both America and China are both trying to play ‘catch up’ with Taiwan and South Korea’s fabrication capabilities.

The Endless Frontier Act enjoys broad bipartisan support, a rarity in this era of divisiveness in Congress. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) emphasizes the importance of the bill: “Whoever wins the race to the technologies of the future is going to be the global economic leader with profound consequences for foreign policy and national security as well.” While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is disappointed at the lack of Republican sponsored amendments in the bill, he nonetheless supports it, noting, “Needless to say, final passage of this legislation cannot be the Senate’s final word on our competition with China.” Despite the bill’s considerable support, there is a small group of GOP representatives concerned with the associated costs. Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) describes the bill as “nothing more than a big government response that will make our country weaker, not stronger.”

While the separation of powers is a pillar of democracy, it often puts democratic states, like the US, at a disadvantage to authoritarian ones; centralized governments can execute initiatives with little to no interference. Schumer described how authoritarian governments are weaponizing this function of their institution: “They believe that squabbling democracies like ours can’t come together and invest in national priorities the way a top-down, centralized and authoritarian government can. They are rooting for us to fail so they can grab the mantle of global economic leadership and own the innovations.” Autocratic states, like China, are simply waiting for the US government to fail its economy by neglecting to incite enough technological innovation. This is why the Endless Frontier Act homes in on economic power. Board of Regent Member at the Potomac Institute Al Shaffer explains how China is trying to improve their technological capabilities: “With their centralized system, China has been effective in focusing efforts, and has made technology independence a pillar of their 14th five year plan.” The Endless Frontier Act aims to nullify some of the harmful transaction costs of democracy. Its purpose is to place the US economically and scientifically ahead of the competition.

How this act will fare once put into action is undetermined. Shaffer notes, “How effective the US bill will be will depend largely on what this bill will do to protect [intellectual property], whether or not the bill is focused on capability or basic science, and how threatened the CCP feels, all of which are unknown.” The Endless Frontier Act’s new directorate focusing on quantum science and artificial intelligence will promote technological innovation, effectively broadening the initiative to include other forms of technology, not just microelectronics. The act will hopefully aid in securing the US’s first-place status in the race toward international technological dominance.