The Life Scientific: Ginger Kerrick

Jim Al-Khalili (0:00)

Yesterday is a physicist whose childhood dream of becoming an astronaut led to a three-decade career at NASA, helping shape the future of human spaceflight. Ginger Kerrick fell in love with space at the age of five after finding a book about astronauts at her local library in El Paso, Texas. By her twenties, after getting a Masters in Physics, she was working at NASA and going through the rigorous interview process to become an astronaut herself, only to be permanently disqualified after doctors discovered kidney stones.

For some people, that might have been the end of the story. For Ginger, it was just the beginning. She went on to become NASA's first non-astronaut capsule communicator, serving as the voice linking mission control to astronauts.

She later became their first Hispanic female flight director, overseeing high-stakes space shuttle and International Space Station operations. Along the way, she's lived and worked in Russia, helping to train the first long-term crew on the International Space Station, logged thousands of hours in mission control and was awarded the NASA Distinguished Service Medal. She says there are always going to be bumps in the road that force you to change course. And that's OK, because you might be very pleasantly surprised at what lies in store on that new path. Ginger Kerrick, welcome to the Live Scientific.

Ginger Kerrick (1:18)

Thank you so much.

Jim Al-Khalili (1:20)

Ginger, you've been involved in human spaceflight from the shuttle era right through to early planning, for the Artemis and Mars missions. What would you say are the biggest scientific shifts you've seen over that time? Has anything come in and just completely blown up the status quo?

Ginger Kerrick (1:36)

Well, we don't like to use the word blown up in human space.

Jim Al-Khalili (1:39)

Oh, sorry, sorry, yes.

Ginger Kerrick (1:42)

But I would say when SpaceX came onto the scene, shortly after we retired the space shuttle, and they had an idea of reusing their rockets. And at first, it didn't look like it was going to work, but eventually they were able to land those on a barge and reuse them, and that saves almost 70% of the costs of a launch. So that was game changing.

Jim Al-Khalili (2:10)

I mentioned your time in Russia, and we're going to come to that in a moment, but your work there during the 1990s earned you a prestigious NASA Silver Snoopy Award for outstanding contributions to mission success. For any listeners who might not know, can you explain how Snoopy, the lovable dog in the Peanuts cartoon, is connected to NASA?

Ginger Kerrick (2:31)

Yes, I was always a fan of Snoopy growing up, but I also knew that in the 1960s, NASA had adopted Snoopy as its safety mascot. Snoopy even flew on one of the early Apollo missions and orbited the moon.

So when I realized I was getting this award, which is only awarded to 1% of NASA's workforce, I thought, wow, this is a dream come true.

Jim Al-Khalili (3:01)

It's a tiny little Snoopy lapel badge that you wear, isn't it? It's very unassuming.

Ginger Kerrick (3:05)

I have it up here in my office, on my wall, so I can look at it every day.

Jim Al-Khalili (3:09)

Well, Ginger Kerrick, you were born in 1969 in El Paso, Texas. Tell me about your parents.

Ginger Kerrick (3:16)

So my dad, I have to do this with the right accent. My dad was a dairy farmer from Owensboro, Kentucky.

And my mother immigrated from Mexico when she was four years old. So my dad was a supervisor at an ice cream plant, and my mother was a stay-at-home mom raising four kids.

Jim Al-Khalili (3:38)

And I mentioned in the introduction that you first became interested in space after a trip to the library. This was with your dad.

Ginger Kerrick (3:46)

Yes. Every Friday, I would go check out a book, and I remember coming home very excited to get this book, Astronomy and Astronauts, and announce to my parents, I want to be an astronaut.

Jim Al-Khalili (3:59)

Tragically, though, when you were just 11 years old, your father died from a heart attack. In fact, it happened right in front of you.

Ginger Kerrick (4:08)

It was the day I made the 7th grade basketball team, and I was so excited. And my mom took me to my father's place of work because he was going to have a surprise for me by taking me out to a local college basketball game. But when I arrived there, I went up to his office.

I could see him in his chair, and he was flopping back and forth and clearly having a full-fledged heart attack. When the ambulance arrived, they put him on a gurney and he waved goodbye to me. And that was the last time I saw him alive. Oh, wow.