December 19, 2024
SpaceKids Global’s active-learning opportunities encourage children to consider careers in STEM — and in space
Sharon Hagle and her husband, Marc (BSEE '71), SpaceKids Global, an organization that encourages elementary students to consider careers in space exploration and technology. She and Marc are now two-time space travelers, having participated in Blue Origin's NS-28 flight in November 2024.
After first flying to space as part of the NS-20 crew (pictured above), Marc and Sharon Hagle flew for a second time aboard the New Shepard rocket Nov. 22, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Blue Origin)
Sharon Hagle still recalls the excitement of the moment in 1961 when an administrator announced over her West Virginia school’s public-address system that Alan Shepard had just become the first American to travel into space.
She never imagined at the time that she would also go to space someday, much less that she’d get there aboard a rocket bearing Shepard’s name.
But as she and her husband, Marc (BS electrical engineering ’71, MS industrial administration ’72), stared out the windows of Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket in 2022 during the NS-20 suborbital flight, they were inspired to share this awe-inspiring experience with others.
“When you have the opportunity to look down on Earth and see how fragile it is, it really does take your breath away, and it changes you,” says Sharon, founder and board chair of SpaceKids Global, an organization that encourages elementary students to consider careers in space exploration and technology. She and Marc are now two-time space travelers, having participated in Blue Origin’s NS-28 flight in November 2024.
“If you talk to any person that has left this planet and had that unique opportunity, every one of them would say that it changes you, and you just have this need to come back and make the Earth better.”
Addressing a societal need
So that’s exactly what she did, interacting thus far with nearly a million students globally through speaking engagements and SpaceKids Global activities focused on STEAM+ (science, technology, engineering, art, mathematics and environment) learning.
Her goal is to inspire schoolchildren, especially young girls, to help meet the ever-growing need for workers in STEM disciplines. And she wants them to consider the career options that will exist in the future — perhaps on the moon, on Mars or beyond.
Many jobs that will exist in the future have not been invented yet due to anticipated technological advances. Before long, many of these types of jobs will exist far away from Earth, as well.
“How do we prepare these kids for all these new careers that are going to be presented by being in zero gravity or on another planet?” Sharon asks. “That’s something we need to think about.”
Sharon and Marc Hagle attended the “Boilers to Mars” premiere, where they were among the featured guests on a recording of the “This Is Purdue” podcast. (Purdue University photo/John Underwood)
Who can become a space explorer?
She also wants schoolchildren to think differently about what it means to be a space explorer, often repeating the mantra that space is for everyone.
When thinking about space jobs, some might instantly picture the scientists and engineers who historically have become astronauts, but future space travelers will come from every walk of life. They will be cooks who prepare food for fellow settlers in their habitat. They’ll be doctors responsible for keeping residents alive and healthy. And they’ll be welders whose expertise is necessary to construct vehicles capable of traveling safely through space.
“Every trade you have here on Earth will one day be duplicated off planet,” says Marc, president and CEO of Tricor International LLC, a real estate development firm based in central Florida.
The space explorers of the future will be single people as well as couples — an important aspect of the Hagles’ own space story, as they are the first married couple to travel beyond the Earth’s atmosphere aboard a commercial spacecraft.
Their NS-20 flight — Blue Origin’s fourth crewed commercial spaceflight — hurtled the six-person crew into space at a velocity of more than three times the speed of sound and reached a height of 66.29 miles above Earth. It was such a mind-blowing experience that the Hagles elected to do it again, if only to retain more of what they witnessed when peering into the vast expanse of space.
“You’re looking out these windows at the darkness — everybody describes the darkness of space being darker than anything they’ve ever seen — and you’re looking back at Earth,” Marc says. “And you’re looking at how thin the atmosphere is over the edge of Earth and how fragile that is. And guess what? Your energy level, your excitement level, is so high, you just don’t remember everything that’s going on.”
The Hagles returned to space Nov. 22, 2024, aboard Blue Origin’s ninth human spaceflight. The voyage made them the first married couple to travel to space twice.
“I would do it 100 times if I could,” jokes Marc, who as a former percussionist in the Purdue “All-American” Marching Band brought along a stuffed replica of the band’s Big Bass Drum on the NS-20 flight.
The experience also strengthened the Hagles’ resolve to remind children that when they say “space is for everyone,” the “everyone” could include them or any of their classmates.
The SpaceKids Global mission
Sharon had already founded SpaceKids Global by the time she and Marc first traveled to space — the organization debuted in 2015 — but her status as a Blue Origin astronaut creates a more powerful message when she tells children that they could travel to space someday, too.
“A point that I want the children to recognize is that you have no idea what you’re seeing today and how that’s going to propel you into whatever you do in the future,” she says. “As a child in West Virginia, I had no idea that I would have this opportunity so early on in space exploration, and then to have a second chance at it.”
SpaceKids Global encourages children to consider the exciting career opportunities that await them through a wealth of active-learning opportunities. To list a few:
The organization has sponsored field trips for Florida Title I public school fourth graders to visit Kennedy Space Center.
It collaborated with Blue Origin’s Club for the Future on a project that let participants of all ages send postcards to space aboard the New Shepard rocket.
Two winners of SpaceKids Global’s “Why I Want To Go to Space” national essay competition were able to take a zero-gravity flight aboard a special Boeing 727 airplane.
And most recently, eight children from across the country became members of the SpaceKids Press Squad, which allowed them to act as reporters while touring Blue Origin’s rocket manufacturing facility, visiting Kennedy Space Center, watching the Hagles’ recent Blue Origin launch from Mission Control and then interviewing the commercial astronauts afterward
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“This is what excites me: getting the kids involved,” Sharon said ahead of the flight.
Assisting in this endeavor is an honorary member of the NS-20 mission crew, the Hagles’ Pomeranian — Saba the Space Dog. Saba might have remained on Earth when the couple made their suborbital flight, but he’s often the star of the show when Sharon brings him into an elementary school classroom wearing his special astronaut uniform.
“Remember, my demographics are 5 to 12 years old,” she says, “and they are such sponges. They listen to everything. The room is quiet. You could hear a pin drop. And then we go into Q&A and the first question is always ‘Can we see your dog again?’ Blue Origin was kind enough to make Saba a spacesuit to match Marc’s and mine, so he was treated just like a dognaut.”
The Hagles have ambitious plans for SpaceKids Global’s future, expanding its reach far beyond the couple’s home base in central Florida and creating partnerships that will enable the organization to provide educational opportunities in students’ middle and high school years up through college entrepreneurial and internship programming.
“As we set those programs up, our geographic reach is going to increase,” Marc says. “We’ve done a very good job locally because we have the presence here and we have the capability here. We’re going to be able to expand that presence and that capability across the country.”
Expanding their legacy
When performing with the marching band during Purdue’s 1967 Rose Bowl victory, Marc could not have expected to someday contribute to the university’s budding reputation as a leading institution for space exploration. And yet he’s doing that very thing more than 50 years after graduation.
But even without space travel, Marc’s Boilermaker legacy would be secure thanks to his and Sharon’s commitment to paying it forward. Their philanthropic spirit is exemplified through their lead donation for the construction of Marc and Sharon Hagle Hall, the home of Purdue Bands & Orchestras, their funding support to the Purdue Astronaut Scholars, and Marc’s continuing role as a guest speaker in the Mitch Daniels School of Business’ real estate finance program.
And it’s most certainly evident in Sharon’s ongoing efforts to help others recognize that they can also travel among the stars.
SpaceKids Global became a primary sponsor of Purdue’s “Boilers to Mars” short film for precisely that reason. The Purdue-produced short film features three Boilermaker students who become the first explorers to travel to Mars — with the characters’ extremely different paths leading to the mission that reinforces the Hagles’ message about the wide range of roles humankind must fill in space.
“I’ve always told people when I’m speaking: going to space is the most emotional and spiritual journey you will ever take, and I think this film pokes you in how emotional it is and how it’s so exciting,” Sharon said on an episode of the “This Is Purdue” podcast recorded at the “Boilers to Mars” premiere.
In one scene from the film, a character named Bobbi works on a laptop adorned with a SpaceKids Global sticker, hinting that her interest in space originated with an early interaction with Sharon’s organization.
At the film’s premiere, Marc encouraged the Purdue students in attendance to follow through on their own ambitious interests and dreams. “It said in the [film] not to be afraid to be first,” he said. “[Virgin Galactic founder] Richard Branson said it a little differently: ‘If your dreams don’t scare you, they’re not big enough.’ So, think of what the future could be for you. Think what the opportunities are and what the benefits could be with an education that you get from such a wonderful university.”