“Believe in yourself and go for it”

Dr. Abell works at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. He studies near-Earth asteroids, the ones that pass close to our planet. In 2010 he was out in the Australian desert at midnight when Japan’s Hayabusa capsule came back through the atmosphere carrying the first piece of an asteroid anyone had ever brought home.

He showed up to our call in an Artemis shirt with the Earth as his Zoom background, and the first thing he did was turn off the AI notetaker because NASA doesn’t allow it. He had a meeting right after ours and still told the full Hayabusa story when I asked.

What surprised me most was how normal his start was. He grew up in a town of 500 people, didn’t plan on NASA, and tried a field in college that he figured out wasn’t for him. Here’s most of what he said.

Lightly edited so it reads easier. The words are his.

A town with no stoplights

Back in high school, did you know you wanted to go into space science? And what got you into asteroids?

“In high school I always knew I wanted to do something with space and astronomy. I didn’t know exactly what. Growing up, I lived in Canada, in a small town of 500 people. We had no stoplights. There was virtually no light pollution, and the skies were clear most of the time. The stars were just like diamonds. I would go outside and just look at the sky.”

“I can’t say I knew I wanted to work at NASA from a very early age. I went away to university and started doing astronomy and astrophysics, and I quickly learned that wasn’t really for me. It was interesting, but it just wasn’t for me. Then in my master’s program I learned about near-Earth asteroids, and how they can be both helpful and a hazard to humanity. That really sparked my interest. So for my PhD, that’s what I studied. I got recruited right out of my PhD program and started at Johnson Space Center in 2004.”

Who made the biggest difference in getting you there?

“So many people. My parents were very supportive and let me chase my dreams. I was always into science fiction and the sky, and they encouraged that. Some of my teachers in high school, and even in elementary school, got me thinking about what I could do.”

“At university, one professor told me, very specifically, ‘You should really go to NASA and work on spacecraft missions.’ Early in grad school, I thought he was crazy. But here I am today.”

“I’m not the smartest person in the room”

A lot of teens can’t decide between something they love and something they’re good at. Which one should they start exploring?

“I’ll tell you this, Sean. I’m not the smartest person in the room. I don’t consider myself a super genius. But I have a strong passion for what I do, especially asteroids, and I’m willing to try new things. If you have that spark, it can take you a long way. I’ve seen people who are very talented, but they’re not doing what they love, and it’s kind of hard for them.”

“I get to do what I love and I get paid for it. I work with astronauts, with big telescopes around the world, on spacecraft missions. It’s almost not like working. So if you find something you really, really love, go for it. Don’t doubt yourself. There will be ups and downs. I was willing to take risks and do the things nobody else would do, and that led to other things. I kept stepping-stoning my way, and now I’m chief scientist of small body exploration at Johnson.”

What you can do with a small telescope

What’s one thing a teen could start this month, in their backyard or at school, without a professional?

“If you have a telescope, it doesn’t have to be super big, and you have a dark sky, you can do what we call characterization studies. You’re not going to find new asteroids in your backyard with a small telescope. But you can help get data on asteroids we already know about, like light curves. A light curve is the change in brightness as the asteroid spins. It’s a little complicated, but it’s possible.”

“If you don’t have a telescope, there are groups online where you can use robotic telescopes. Other people help you get the data, and then you analyze it. There’s also going to be a lot of data from new telescopes like the Vera Rubin Observatory in South America that people could look at and play with. If you’re really dedicated, you might even help pin down where newly discovered asteroids are.”

“The hard part is knowing where to start. Go on the NASA web pages. Look up the Planetary Defense Coordination Office and how to observe asteroids. And don’t be afraid to send emails, or ask your teachers and your parents to help.”

If they don’t answer, send it again

This was the question I cared about most, because it’s the reason thirdauthor exists.

A lot of teens don’t think they know enough to reach out to experts. How willing are professionals to talk to a teen with no experience who really loves the field? What would you tell the ones who are too intimidated?

“I remember being intimidated and scared. I didn’t want to ask a stupid question or come off like I was kind of strange. Who am I? I don’t know anything, and I’m asking this person who’s an expert. It’s hard. But put aside your fear and just ask.”

“Email is easier. Be straightforward: ‘Hey, I’m in high school, or junior high, whatever, and I’m interested in this topic. Can you tell me where to start?’ Most people will be willing to help. Not everybody, but most people.”

“And sometimes you have to send that email a couple of times. I’m not the best at email. One comes in and I see it, then something really important comes up about a spacecraft, then another hundred emails come in, and I’ve forgotten the first one. So send it again. You’re not bothering people. Unless they say you’re bothering them, you’re not bothering them. A lot of times they just didn’t see the first one.”

“If a scientist comes to your school or gives a talk at a planetarium, go up to them. Bring your parents or friends if you’re nervous. When I started doing that, three of us went up together, and it made it a lot easier. There’s safety in numbers.”

So it helps to be around people who love the same stuff?

“I’ve been lucky to have a good group of friends and family who believe in me and don’t think I’m crazy. They don’t even have to be in your field. I do asteroids and comets, but I have friends who study Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, and we support each other. You never know when you’ll have something useful for them, or they’ll have something for you.”

Bad days

It’s easy to assume a successful person had a smooth path. What setbacks did you have, and what kept you going?

“Almost everything in life has ups and downs. It’s like a roller coaster. Some things are beyond your control, and they’ve happened to me personally. What kept me going: number one, I believed in myself. Number two, I didn’t give up.”

“That doesn’t mean smashing your head against a brick wall over and over. Sometimes it means, ‘This isn’t working, let’s take a different approach.’ You’re still moving forward, just in a slightly different direction. Everybody has bad days. Just don’t let them overwhelm you. Say, ‘Okay, that didn’t work. I’m going to try this,’ and go.”

Stories from NASA: Using asteroids to get to Mars

You’ve studied whether astronauts could visit an asteroid. What would that mission look like?

“Right now we’re doing Artemis. I have the shirt on. We’re sending astronauts back to the Moon, and eventually we want to get to Mars, which is much farther away.”

“It’s like the old days when sailors left Europe and hit islands on the way to North America. Near-Earth asteroids are those islands. They sit between the Earth and Mars, so you use them as stepping stones. Artemis II was 10 days. So say you go out for 30 days and visit an asteroid and come back. You’ve proved the life support works, the rockets work, the communications work. Next time, 60 days. Then 90. And all of a sudden that Mars mission isn’t so risky, isn’t so scary, because of everything you’ve learned.”

“You’d probably have a crew of two to four, some spacewalks, and you’d definitely collect samples. We make it sound easy, but anything we do in space is really, really difficult.”

Stories from NASA: The night Hayabusa came home

What was it like when the Hayabusa capsule came back in Australia? Did you go there yourself?

“I did. To be clear, I didn’t personally recover the capsule. The Japanese team did. I was on the contingency recovery team, in case something went wrong, like the parachute not opening or the capsule going off course.”

“We were in the middle of the Australian outback. No lights whatsoever. Pitch black, no Moon that night. There were so many stars I had trouble making out the constellations. And then all of a sudden this bright fireball came in, the capsule and the spacecraft. It was so bright it cast shadows. You could literally have read a book by the light of the reentry.”

“Everything went perfectly, so we didn’t have to do anything. It was midnight, and the test range was so big that it took us four hours to drive back to base. Then it was mayhem. I tried to sleep and couldn’t. The radio and TV interviews started. We had the first samples from an asteroid ever. Something I’ll never forget.”

Last thing

Is there anything you want the teens watching to know?

“Believe in yourself and go for it. You can do anything if you put your mind to it. But above all, be true to yourself, believe in yourself, and be happy. That’s my best advice.”

Thank you to Dr. Abell and NASA Johnson Space Center for making the time.

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