Childhood dreams are truly powerful. The things that your 4- and 5-year-old dreams of can actually give some indication to their future interests.
Alyssa Carson is a prime example of this. As a little girl, Alyssa was fascinated by space. Her parents supported that love and curiosity. When Alyssa first told her dad that she wanted to go to Mars, that wasn't even in the realm of possibility. Today, it seems she's closer to her dreams than ever before as the world's youngest astronaut-in-training and youngest person to complete NASA's Passport Program.
Now 20 years old, Alyssa is determined to help the next generation of female astronauts get started on pursuing their curiosities. Alyssa spoke with LittleThings about her work on the Back to School Blast Off campaign and the Space for Her Scholarship fund. Alyssa opened up about her continued love and pursuit of STEM learning and what mentors have meant to her along her journey.
Alyssa Carson was a young kid when she developed a fascination with space. "Well, when I was a kid I was definitely fascinated with the curiosity of space," she shared with LittleThings.
"You know, what's up there? What is there to find? Just really, you know, no one's really been to these parts of space. So what do we have to discover? That's kind of what instantly drew me into space."
Alyssa's family encouraged her interests. As she learned more about science, she realized that's the aspect of space that intrigued her.
"The more that I learned about space, the more [it was] really figuring out what my direct interest was in terms of what I wanted to do someday," she explained.
"I was definitely more interested in the science part of it. I found that out pretty early on that the science was much more fascinating to me, rather than the flying of the spacecraft and stuff."
Today, Alyssa is a college student pursuing a bachelor's degree in astrobiology at the Florida Institute of Technology.
"So that's kind of how I ended up in astrobiology today, which is pretty much just like science and space and experiments in space, and studying anything there can be," she explained.
"And so that is kind of what drew me into originally going into space. And then I kind of trailed the path by going to space camp and things like that from there."
Alyssa attended her first space camp at 7 years old in Huntsville, Alabama. She's attended six additional programs since then, at different facilities across the country. In 2014, she became the first person to complete the NASA Passport Program, visiting each of NASA's 14 visitor centers across nine states.
Alyssa's wealth of unique experience makes her an excellent mentor to younger generations interested in the bounty and wonder of space. Through her partnership with Frito-Lay, she'll send interested girls around the country to space camp to get their start with the $150,000 Space for Her Scholarship fund.
"So essentially what Frito-Lay is doing is that they are having the Space for Her Scholarship, and that is going to go to several girls to have the opportunity to go to space camp and really have this amazing experience," she explained.
"So I'm super excited to be a part of that and kind of be a part of these girls' journey to space camp."
Alyssa will also be among the available mentors in the Space for Her-oes mentorship program. "Not only do the girls get to go to space camp but they also get to be mentored by some really amazing women who are involved in the space industry, myself included," she noted.
"And so it's really exciting to actually have some time with the girls to really make sure that we are doing and giving them all the tools that they [need] to actually fulfill whatever their dreams may be, whatever part of them or space that they actually want to go into. We want to make sure that we are meeting those needs so that way they can go on and fulfill their own dreams."
Alyssa discussed the role that mentors have played in her own education and career so far. "I would definitely say that mentors have played a huge role, especially when I was younger," she explained.
"I didn't really know what it meant to have a job in space. I didn't know what the path to get there looked like or really anything, and so having some pretty incredible people kind of explain it and direct me was truly amazing."
"One in particular, was actually a female Shuttle astronaut; her name was Sandra Magnus," she recalled.
"I met her when I was around 9 or so. She pretty much just told me her story [when I] asked when she got interested, but she really showed me that it didn't matter what age I got interested in space; I could still put in the hard work and make it a reality."
"So taking her advice definitely made a huge impact on me," Alyssa shared.
"And now I just hope to do the same with the next generation of girls, and hopefully my story, just like she shared hers, will inspire the next little girl."
Alyssa has learned a lot in her journey so far. She shared some of the details of her favorite skill she's learned.
"I would definitely say, one of the coolest skills, I love the work that I've done with space suits," she explained. "So I've done a few evaluations with Final Frontiers Spacing Design, with both their IVA and EVA space suits. That pretty much just means space suits that you use inside of a spacecraft and space suits that use outside.
"I've done some testings with those. That's been really cool, to actually learn how space suits work, actually wear one, the inside one — that was pretty cool."
As far as getting to space herself, Alyssa's still got some schooling to go before she can qualify. "Right now I am a college student in astrobiology, so I will continue with that and continue on my education. I will also have to get a master's and so obviously a few more years of school left," she noted.
"But besides that, really always keeping an ear open for any sort of opportunities that may come up. Especially, you know, either research projects or I also want to continue my flying a little bit.
"That's another thing that I hope to do in the future. But really always looking for new things to kind of push myself and really build any other opportunities on and add them on to the résumé."
Alyssa's also got a number of projects outside of her education, both related and unrelated to space, that help her gain skills she'll be able to use down the road. "There's always a lot going on in my life. I never like to say still," Alyssa admitted.
"I'm currently an intern at Jacobs, which is one of NASA's largest contractors, but I'm on their international space relations team. So it does relate to space, but it also relates a lot to working with different space agencies around the world.
"That global aspect has been really, really interesting. And also to learn a little bit more of the business side of space has been really, really cool."
"That's been something that was definitely totally different from everything else I was doing. I kind of stepped away from the experiments and stuff like that to kind of learn a little bit about this," she shared.
"That's been a really unique experience. I went to an international school growing up, K through 12. Now being able to really apply that to these space agencies that are looking to get a head start on what they're doing is a really cool thing to learn more about."
Alyssa also offered advice for little girls who are interested in seeing where STEM can take them, in life and in space.
"I would definitely tell little girls, it's all about really figuring out what you are interested in doing, you know, try to have a bunch of different experiences to really see what you like the most and really find a dream and never give up on it," she shared.
"You can truly think about anything. When I was young, saying, 'I want to be an astronaut [and] go to Mars,' that wasn't something that was really realistic at the time but definitely has become more and more of a reality."
"Especially for little girls, if you are looking for cool, science-y things to do even at home, or maybe after school or things to learn more about STEM, a part of what Frito-Lay is doing is actually offering a lot of fun STEM activities online on the website FLVPblastoff.com," she shared.
"And so you can sit at home and actually do these fun experiments with household items and learn about STEM. So that could also be a fun way to actually get some different areas of science under your belts that we can figure out you're most interested in."
