Inside UCF's history as SpaceU, NASA ties

Giving you a look right now at the campus of the University of Central Florida ahead of the space game tonight on UCF's campus at the Acreșure Bounce House. I am sure the place will be bouncing after a big win for the football team last week over number two BYU. And now you've got the space game, one of the most highly anticipated games of the year. And we're talking today about the history of UCF as Space U. It originally opened as Florida Technological University and has a strong And so joining us live now to talk about this, pleased to be joined by Dr. Philip Metzger, Director of the Stephen Hawking Center for Microgravity Research and Education at UCF. Dr. Metzger, we always enjoy talking with you, and thanks so much for joining us today. Glad to be here. So just talk to us. Obviously, UCF is very closely intertwined with the space program. Can you just talk to us a little bit about what it means for UCF to be Space U? Well, when the legislature created University of Central Florida, even before it was built, they were already calling it Space U in the newspapers. So it was placed here to support the workforce of the space program, and we've really stepped into those shoes. We are now a full-fledged university with every type of academic department and a medical college, and every part of our university has space running in its blood. Yeah, that it's one of the things I think that makes it so unique and it's just really cool to to to kind of have those those ties and so many of those of those programs. What does that look like today? Well, today we have one of the larger planetary science faculties in the United States. We have a large engineering college. We graduate and place more graduates into the aerospace industry than any other country, any other university in the United States. We also have a lunar mission. Dr. Carrie Donaldson-Hanna with her co-I, Addie Dove, are sending a rover to the moon. NASA funded them and selected them to do that mission. But we've also got the world's largest simulation of the lunar surface, high-fidelity simulation at the Exolith Lab. And also Stephen Hawking commissioned UCF to... To get the public more involved in space, and so when he created the Stephen W. Hawking Center for Microgravity Research and Education, he put it at UCF, where one of only two universities in the world allowed to use his name, the other being Cambridge. All of that stuff, Dr. Metzger, has to be stuff that you're proud of, that the university is proud of. Yeah, I am very proud of it. I grew up on the space coast. My father worked on the Apollo program. So I've been focused on space most of my life. And I'm really privileged to be a part of UCF, to be part of the faculty here, to work with these amazing students who are full of enthusiasm and they're looking forward to the next things America is going to do in space. So it's a great place to be. Yeah, we're often focused on space here in Central Florida, but now it's getting, you know, a lot of attention across the country and around the world, you know, with the excitement from the Artemis missions and just so many things that are happening, a renewed focus on space. And that has to be, you know, really cool to be at the center of all of this that is happening with such a big focus on it now at so many different levels. Yeah I do think the space economy is going to grow explosively especially because of AI. All the space companies and all the AI companies are talking about putting data centers in space now to get them out of Earth's environment. And so the projections show the space economy is going to grow into the multiple trillions of dollars and I think it'll even rival the world's entire economy by about 2060. So it's going to be a time of tremendous growth. We need to We need to have universities. preparing the workforce for that future and we need to be getting the whole public involved because as civilization goes beyond planet earth into space we want to all go together. And so what's your message last thing here what's your message to to maybe kids out there who who are interested in space right now and maybe someday want to want to go to UCF want to want to work in this this space industry what would you tell them? My advice would be, first of all, study hard, learn math, learn physics, learn engineering, learn how to communicate well, but also do hands-on activities, build robots, get involved in clubs that launch rockets, because that hands-on experience is really crucial. Learn how to be a team player because the people around you are crucial to your own success in life. So be a good person, be a good team player, and come to UCF and go Knights. All right. Go Knights. Charge on. That's right. Dr. Philip Metzger, director of the Stephen W. Hawking Center for Microgravity Research and Education at UCF. We really appreciate you joining us today and talking with us. My pleasure, Garrett.