My next guest is a former NASA rocket scientist, entrepreneur, and global stem advocate. Oh and did I mention she will make history as one of six women on Billionaire Jeff Bezos is eleventh Blue Origin and S thirty one space flight on April fourteenth. Please welcome the one and only Miss Aieshabo.
How are you? How's everything?
I'm good.
It's nice to finally meet you. First of all, I'm very very proud of you.
Congratulations on all your success, and I'm especially proud because you're working in partnership with my alma mater, Wister Salem State University.
Tell an audience about that, please, let's let's got a touch on that first.
Listen, we couldnot go to space without Winston Salem. When I embarked upon this mission, it was important for me to conduct science and to do it with a world class institution like Winston Salem.
I long admire their astropotany.
Lab from when I was at NASA, and I am privileged to have the opportunity to genetically sequence plants face with them.
How do you feel about this? I mean they say this is the lady's time. I mean with all the ladies going on this historic trip. Who'll be joining Tell an audience who will be joining you on this flight?
Sure, I'm joined by Gil King, Katy Perry, Lauren Sanchez, Carrie, Anne Flynn, and Amanda win.
Now those ladies that elected to join you, what kind of advice have you given them? I'd like to know this, because you know Gail is usually one that gives advice now takes it. I know she's a friend of mine, and she's so bossy. I say that affectionately. What are the kind of things you told her about what she's about to embark upon?
Pleasant planning and preparation, right, I look at this similar to athletics. It's important to visualize. It's important to prepare and to be in the moment. We're getting ready to go on a journey that almost everyone who has gone on it has come back forever changed. And for people around the world who are writing me, who are engaging with the mission and seeing a little bit of themselves in us, it's important that we show up to.
Meet the moment.
Tell the folks out there about yourself in terms of who you are and how this all came to be. I mean, when we think about I mean there's a lot of aspirations. People are very aspirational in this day and age, but you don't see too often somebody engaging in this kind of stuff where you're going up in space, girl, you're going above the earth crying out loud.
I mean, how did all of this come to be?
I'm the person who never thought that I would be here.
I started out as someone who wasn't high performing in high school. In fact, I went to my community sorry, I went to community college, and I didn't even apply to college after asking my high school guidance.
Counselor what she thought I could do, and she.
Said, I think you'd better be better be off pursuing cosmetology.
And you know, I hold on cosmetology.
Yeah, And you know I pause here because I'm looking at you and I'm looking at this and this was all it was all a dream. And I did not apply to college because I thought I wasn't smart enough to go. I did not have the dream of working at NASA because I thought that I couldn't make it.
And so when I went.
To school, I said, you know what, Aisha, You're in community college, but you have taken everything that someone else has told you about yourself to be true, and it is not.
And so let's focus only on what it is that you want to do.
And what I wanted to do was wake up every day and look at my face and be proud. I want to look in the mirror and say that my black was beautiful.
And I wanted to live a life that was a testimony. And so I said I'm going to become a rocket scientist. And people laughed.
I mean, they still laugh at me. Today's spoiler alert. I'm like, google me, I'll wait right. But they laughed because they didn't think that I could do it. And so I started my aerospace engineering degree with pre algebra in this community college. I went to Michigan Aerospace. I got a master's in space system's engineering. And then I went to NASA, and I said, I'm going to commit my life to telling people that being realistic is the most commonly travel path to mediocrity.
I had the pleasure of meeting your wonderful mama. She's standing right over there. I see where she gets here. I see where you get it from. Okay, let me just say that very very complimentary, I might add, but here's the deal, wasn't it your dad that first mentioned to you or suggested that you might want to take this path. And if that is so, if that is so, what.
Is it that he saw that you didn't see.
At that particular moment in time that made him make that suggestion.
Well, my dad, who's from the Bahamas, decided that when he heard what the guidance counselor said, he would go and give her a piece of his mind.
He was told not to come back.
So he did go and give her a piece of his mind, and they told him not to come back.
Correct, okay, okay, said you know, you cannot allow others to define you in life. And I want you to know that you were smarter than what they think you are, and you were better. And so he would challenge me at the dinner table. He would ask me to write, like you know, write down equations and things, and then he would tear them up and he would tell me that the only thing that someone can't take from you
is the stuff that's in your mind. And he said, are you sure you can do whatever it is that you put your mind to, So go do the math.
I will pay for it. You'll take the class again. And so I started over the classes I was taking in high school that I didn't do well in. I started over in community college because he told me that I could.
And I'm thinking about it for along the way he had to see something is in terms of it's one thing to believe in you because he loves you daily and he believes that you have a level of intellect that they're underestimating. It's another thing important entirely to see a particular gift. You got to be gifted to do what you're doing right here, because so you're clearly a gifted young lady. I'm saying, did he see that expertise in math? Your interests elevated when it came to that subject.
What was it?
You know? I think he saw potential.
Everyone needs someone who believes in them.
You know.
One of the things I loved about the Venus Serena moving was that the father spoke power over them before they were champions. He was really deliberate about making sure that no one would tell them that they were going to be anything better than the best.
And my dad, in that moment told me the same thing.
It wasn't because I had previously demonstrated it. It was because he saw potential, and I grew into my potential.
Heck, I'm still growing into it.
I went from being at NASA to running two companies, to making education product to being on the show.
Talking to you.
I'm still learning how to do. But what I stand for is the dream. I stand for the idea that there is no dream too big and nothing too audacious?
Was folks?
Were folks derailing your dreams? Or was your actions derailing your dreams? Because you didn't believe you were as nearly as focused as you ultimately became, Which was the biggest impediment to you getting to where you are today?
In your estimation, I think I was the biggest impediment because I had to learn how to think. I had to learn how to view myself as a computer that needed to be pushed new programming. Essentially, I control the narrative in my mind, and so if I consistently reinforced how I think and how I respond to the things around me, then I can change reality to be what it is that I wanted to be.
How were you able to do that when you use the word reinforcement, Because I'm peeling apart some of the words that you're saying and you talked about reinforce, well, that means it was there, but something inside of you was willing to put forth the due diligence, the level of tenacity, etc. That you were not willing to do in the past. Was the inspiration there because you wanted to make your daddy proud? Was the inspiration there because you wanted to debunk and ultimately dismiss.
What the teacher who referred you.
To cosmatology recommended. I mean, when we think about the word reinforce, it emanates from somewhere, which was the motivation for you.
I was tired of feeling bad. I want to feel good.
When I woke up, I looked at my reflection and I didn't like what I saw. And when I really started to think of it, here was I had someone that loved me and thought I was so great, But.
I didn't think that way.
I didn't feel that way, and I could not feel good without taking control of me. And so I said, I am strong enough to overcome whatever challenges are before me, and.
I do that every single day, even to this day.
I wake up and before I start everyone else's day, I start mine, and I have affirmations, I have meditation, I pray and then I get going.
Does meditation really work?
I've been that's been referred to me on many many occasions. I'm going like this, it's kind of impossible. That requires me to shut up and just sit there and empt in my mind. And I just think there's a lot of things in life I could pull off. I don't know if I could pull that off. Can you pull that off? How hard is it to learn how to meditate?
Listen? I like to meditate when I meditated, like to do it in the Bahamas.
Resident you know, I'm from Virginalis and now my family's from same time as Virginalais.
Listen, I'm past how about that?
How about that?
But I mean I look at you now, and we all have to just stand down and marvel at the accomplishments that you've achieved to this degree. When I think about what you're doing moving forward, particularly with this mission, and how it's going to resonate not just in America.
But throughout the world.
As you go and you talk to young ladies throughout the country, because I know you do, what are the kind of things you say to them?
I tell them that space is for all and not for some I'm literally traveling with postcards that I've asked the students to write their dreams down on because my goal is to be a bedtime story. I want people to tell their children what it is that I did in the hopes of encouraging them to reach for the stars.
But you're going to carry these postcards from the students, right And I wanted to ask you what they're going to symbolize.
But you're taking them up in space with you. Yes, what you're doing.
You know, thanks to Lauren and Jeff, they're going back to the very same students who wrote them, and so they'll be stamp flown in space and then they're going to bring space back down to Earth.
Tell me about the significance of the American flag that you know you're going to take into space.
When I first started working at NASA, I met a woman named Nancy Conrad. She's the wife of Pete Conrad, the third man to walk on the Moon. She became a very powerful mentor to me, and Pete's story is similar to mine. He was rambunctious and he didn't necessarily
fit in the traditional mold of school. In the beginning, Nancy saw that I wanted to go to space, and she mentored me along the way, and when the mission was confirmed, she said, Aisha, I want to provide you with the symbol of the past, because you are the future.
And she asked the museum a flight in Seattle to go and get Pete's flag that he took to the moon with him on Apollo twelve, and they sent it to me, And so I will have an opportunity to put that flag back in space, and then it will have been flown twice and his legacy and my legacy will be shared in the museum.
How long you gonna be up there?
Do you know long enough?
Listen, that's vague, that's vague. I need specifics. You're gonna be in space? You know how long are you gonna be up there? In now?
Yes, So the entire flight will be like maybe eleven minutes, right, and yes, And it's great because one, that's enough to study how plans respond to microgravity.
And two, my mom knows exactly when I'm coming home.
Did you just finish saying that the eleven minutes is enough to study?
Is that?
Would you just say eleven minutes that's all you need.
That's all you well, so when you're in microgravity, changes on the molecular level happen instantly, and so we're actually able to genetically sequence plants in that period of time. And this has implications for food security on Earth.
We know, forgive this question, it's gonna sound a bit idiotic, maybe, but I gotta ask, because you know, we hear politicians all the time talking about taking us into space, they exploring space, what have you. Ultimately, one day we're gonna live on malls and stuff like that, and I don't pay You're the reason I'm paying attention to it now.
You should. I'm going to be honest with you. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be paying attention to this, you understand, But you got me interested. Are we to take that and embrace that seriously?
That that is an objective and an agenda for astronauts, and that's and everything in between as it pertains to this country, this world and things from an exploration perspective, they're really really plot to do this.
Well, we've been studying various elements of space travel for some time.
We say we humanity massive and what we've realized is that space is a harsh environment. No surprise there.
But what we learn in space has implications here on Earth. So if you can grow plants in space, you can grow them here in food deserts. You can help make sure that people get access to the next generation of antibiotics, and you can also make sure that they get Wi Fi wherever they are.
Got youa so you just utilizing that to bring it back to Earth to make sure we maximize our potential as a human race, as opposed to telling us were trying to move.
The mall does what you tell them exactly space for the benefit of Earth?
That moves me.
I feel a lot better about that now, a lot more knowledgeable about it.
How does one prepare for a spaceflight?
Well, if you're an adrenaline drinkie like me, you have a lot of fun while doing it. I just had the opportunity to fly in L thirty nine, which is a fighter jet, and I successfully completed some aileron rolls and some high speed maneuvers and had a great time. But there is a commercial space flight regulation that kind of lays out preparation for space and so I've gone from flying an acrobatic aircraft to hypoxia training to these fighter jet and.
High g forces six g's. I love it.
I absolutely love it, and so it's important to physically and mentally prepare.
I give you kudos not just for your accomplishments, but because of your bravery.
Because they tried to get me up in the fire the jets years ago, and.
I told them to go hell, don't even think about it, don't even think about coming my way with that nonsense.
I'm comfortable on land. You understand I'm not trying to do that. So you're braver than me.
But I got the hook up. I know a Bahamian who's a fighter pilot. He owns the aircraft. Let's go.
No, yes, I'm not that brave.
You can do it. No, I can do it. You can do it too.
I know I could do it, but because of me, I ain't gonna be scared as hell when I'm doing at a heart attack.
You understand what I'm saying.
Well, look, I think the fear is good. You feel the fear, you do it anyway.
If people ask me, are you nervous, It's like, yes, I'm getting in a rocket and going up. But on the other side of fears, everything I've ever wanted will.
This mission be carried. It will be, it will be.
It will be broadcast on blue Orgin dot com Wow on April fourteenth.
You can tune in, whether in a classroom or you were at home.
I want to go to a couple of other things before you depart, and I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule onor to have you here. It means a lot to me that you hear, and it means a lot to me that everybody's gonna know
even more about your story. You found it stem Board start up specializing in engineering services for federal and private sector clients without any outside funding, and twenty twenty it landed on the Ink magazine's five thousand list of the fastest growing privately owned US companies.
How were you able to do that?
A dollar and a very supportive dog, Really just that simple. I was telling people that, look.
I'm going to found a company, and they didn't know any people who look like me with my background who had founded companies and were successful.
And so I decided that if you tell me that I can't do it, I'm gonna do it.
And over the last twelve years, we've been recognized for hiring veterans.
We received a higher vets award from the Department of Labor.
We've had the opportunity to expand to five states, and we've been on the ink list now twice.
I couldn't, They said, I can't. I did?
You did? You did?
You're also doing great work togain kids to consider STEM careers through your ed tech company Lingo.
Talk to me about that for a second, and who do you hope to reach?
Well, it sort of became this year one trick pony thing.
I'm like, no, I feel like genius is evenly distributed.
Opportunity, however, is not.
And so how do I take what it is that I have learned and my resources and bring it to students all around the world?
And that was through Lingo.
Many students had never been taught anything by a black woman that was technical in middle school or high school or college, and so we decided to make self paced coding kids. We started off by supporting Inroads and it bloomed from there. We in the last two years have delivered these kids into the hands of ten thousand students.
But we stay teaches us for freshman computer science. We've been bought in ten countries, and I'm delighted to say that we've launched two new space themed lessons so that we can take this mission and we can take the inspiration and we can deliver that into skills that people can use to be employable in the future.
My last question to you would be that I know you care about humanity, the human race. I know that you have a special affection for young ladies out there in this world trying to make it happen for themselves. But I imagine as a marvelous black woman, it's very very touching considering the connections to HBCUs and beyond what your accomplishments have meant and will continue to me to young black ladies out there in the years to come.
Can you talk about that for a second and how that vibes with your mission and your aspirations and life as you move forward.
Yeah.
I had the opportunity when I was at NASA to speak to Michelle Nichols. And if you know Michelle, you know her from Star Trek, but she also well she was the person who recruited the first class of African American astronauts with NASA. She used her star power to go out there and find many people who you read about in history, and for me, it's the story. I want to know that when I'm gone that I have
left this place better than when I received it. And for women, girls, people, we don't just inspire black people. We inspire all people, culture, everything around the world. And so for me to be here in this moment, I want to let people know.
While I would love it if.
You become a rocket scientist, what I want you to take from this is do not allow anybody to define you.
Aisha Vo, the marvelous Ishabo, good luck, continue to make all of us proud, because you're certainly making me proud.
Thank you so much for being here.
My thanks to the one and only I should vo to all female Blue Origin NS thirty one space flight.
Is scheduled for April fourteenth. Be sure to check it out. Thank you so much,