Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - When looking at the future of space exploration in the United States, Western New York is showing a strong presence in one day getting humans back into outer space.
That presence was on display Wednesday at the Space Fair and Trade Show taking place on the campus of SUNY Buffalo State University at its Science and Mathematics Complex. The family-friendly event for students on campus and the general public featured a variety of fun educational activities, as well as highlighting the region's contributions to the recent success of the Artemis I mission.
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"New York really plays a key role in the Artemis program," said Chief Transformation Officer for Jacobs at Kennedy Space Center, John Ramsey during Wednesday's event. "A number of critical suppliers, we visited a few of those over the past couple of days, and they have components and systems in really all areas of the program. Whether it'd be the infrastructure at Kennedy Space Center, as well as the flight vehicles themselves - the launch vehicle, SLS, and Orion, the crew vehicle."
A number of Western New York companies were on-hand during Wednesday's event, including Moog, Taber Industries, Taylor Devices and others, who have played a part in helping the Artemis I mission take flight.
"We have over 100 suppliers here in New York State, but a lot of them are concentrated right here in the Buffalo-Niagara region. About 90% of the work done in New York for Orion spacecraft is done right here, by companies and persons that live here and work here," said Michelle Butzke, Orion Program Office Project Manager for Lockheed Martin. "We're really excited to be here, not only to come and thank those companies for what they did on Artemis one last year when we went back to the Moon, but to encourage these students and the local community, and show them that going to the Moon, we need everybody here in Buffalo, New York too."
The Artemis I mission was an unmanned launch to assure a safe crew module entry, descent, splashdown, and recovery in the first integrated flight test of NASA’s Deep Space Exploration Systems. The first mission was seen as a huge success for the program, with plans already in the works for the Artemis II mission sometime next year.
Greg Heidenreich from Moog says the company provides several components that helped the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and launch the Orion space capsule that eventually will orbit the Moon with human astronauts again for the first time in 50 years. He says it's satisfying to see what the Moog community produce products that people believe are cutting edge.
"Moog is just a small portion of what that rocket did, the Artemis rocket. We're getting to the Moon again for the first time in several years, 50 years, so it's just neat to be part of that," said Heidenreich during Wednesday's event. "This event here, being the Space Fair and Trade Show, is just giving back to the community, trying to engage with the kids, trying to get them into the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) arena, if you will, and talk about opportunities that might be there later in life for them."
Meanwhile, the faculty at Buffalo State University was honored to welcome members of NASA, Lockheed Martin and other organizations that worked together to pull off the launch and execution of Artemis I. Not only was Wednesday's event a celebration of the program's accomplishments so far, but it was also NASA's way of thanking the local businesses for their part in the mission.
"It's awesome to be able to show off our facilities, and have folks from NASA, from contractors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and some of the local companies like Moog and others coming to campus to show off what they do as part of the Artemis program. It's really exciting," said Kevin Williams, planetarium director at SUNY Buffalo State.
As it turns out, the Western New York ties extend a little further than the local companies playing a part in the Artemis mission.
Shawn Quinn is the manager of NASA’s Exploration Ground Systems Program at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
In his position, Quinn is responsible for leading the government and contractor team that is preparing the ground systems, infrastructure, facilities, and operations required to process and launch NASA's space launch systems and spacecraft in support of the Artemis program and the nation’s return to the Moon.
As it turns out, Quinn grew up in Upstate New York in the Town of Corning, and he just knew ever since he could remember that a life of launching rockets with the intent to return to the Moon was just right for him.
"I probably built every single Estes model rocket in the catalog [back in] the day, and I just found it incredibly interesting to spend hours at the library reading books about Mercury, Gemini and Apollo," said Quinn before addressing members of the community at a lecture about the Artemis program. "I actually can remember sitting in front of the TV watching some of the later Apollo missions. I had the bug way back then, so I set my sights on math and science in middle school, math and science in high school."
After high school, Quinn eventually found his way to Georgia Tech, where he received an engineering degree before working for NASA as a cooperative education student. In 2006, he was selected for the NASA Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Accelerated Leadership Fellowship and entered the MIT System Design and Management Program. He completed the program in 2008 with a master's degree in engineering and management.
Quinn admits he gets a lot of energy out of visits like Wednesday and to the other companies earlier in the week. While he knows what they're doing at NASA right now is important for the future of space exploration, he also wants to inspire the next generation of science, technology, engineering, and math students.
He adds it's great to see the contributions from Western New York and their role producing some of the innovative resources for the success of the Artemis mission.
"It's great to be able to come back and give our thanks to the workers at these industries, the leadership, and also to say thank you to Western New York," Quinn said. "I really did have an awesome upbringing, if you will, that got me postured and ready to go from my undergraduate work, and then later my graduate work at MIT."
With the successful launch and execution of Artemis I this past November, the ultimate goal for NASA one day is to eventually make it to Mars with a manned crew to do research of the fourth planet in our solar system.
"Going to Mars is hard. It takes over six months to get there, once you get there, a typical mission could last anywhere from 30 days for, what we'll call, a short stay mission, or up to a year-and-a-half or two years for a long stay mission," Quinn detailed. "It's all about orbital mechanics, getting back-and-forth to Mars. It's hard, it's far away, so we have a lot to learn before we want to send our first astronaut crews to Mars."
Before NASA can even think about a voyage to Mars, the Artemis program will first focus on getting astronauts back to the Moon for the first time since 1972.
"Next year, we'll launch Artemis II, our first crewed mission, it's a lunar fly by. And then Artemis III a couple years later is going to be our first crewed landing using the SpaceX Starship human landing systems," Quinn said. "We'll get that vehicle tested, and then we will start landed in more interesting places, perhaps the South Pole, where there might be water ice, and then stay longer and longer and longer, and really learn how to live off the land on the Moon."
More of our conversation with Quinn is available in the player below: