"When you're going through college and you're taking those exams, yeah, if you stumble a little bit, but it's still something you crave, eat it and then say, 'I'm going to get better. I will learn from this mistake.' And so whatever mistakes happened to me that either I caused or just the luck of fate hit me upside the face this time and said, 'We're going to slap you down a little bit and see if you get up.' Well, I got up." Mike Weasner

Transcript

Carolyn Hadlock:

Today we're talking with Mike Weasner, IU astrophysics grad, former fighter pilot and space shuttle manager, founder of Cassiopeia Observatory and winner of IU's 2019 Bicentennial Medal for Astronomy Outreach. Welcome to the show, Mike.

Mike Weasner:

Thank you for having me. This is an honor.

Jillian Ramsey:

I first want to talk about your childhood a little bit. Can you tell us a story of when you first fell in love with the stars?

Mike Weasner:

I grew up in the early 1950s and into the '60s—the beginning of the space age. My older brother Paul was 12 years older than me and a senior in high school in 1954 when I was six. He would take me out in the backyard of our hometown in Seymour, Indiana, and show me the night sky. I thought it was all really neat and exciting—hearing stories about rockets and people eventually going to the moon and planets. But then he pointed out the constellation of Cassiopeia. The bright stars in that constellation sometimes make an M in the sky and sometimes make a W. There were my initials up in the sky that I was starting to fall in love with. That really resonated with me and got me excited about science and astronomy.

But in the early 1960s, I started falling in love with music. I was in junior high school and then high school band, so I had this tug: did I want to go into music or astronomy? In 1963 when I went to high school in 10th grade, we had a new band director who graduated from Indiana University. He was grooming me to become a music teacher—I didn't know that. My mother always wanted me to be a teacher, but I wanted to do astronomy, science, research, all that cool stuff. But this music tug was really there. All during 10th, 11th, and 12th grade, I struggled: music or astronomy? I went back and forth. Finally, I went to Mr. Patton and said, "Yeah, Mr. Patton, I've decided I'm going to be an astronomer."

I also knew that coming out of college, I wanted to have a job right away. I wanted to go into the Air Force and be a scientist. So I enrolled in Air Force ROTC at Indiana University. Unfortunately, an obscure medical regulation kicked me out for two years, but that provided motivation to go to graduate school so I could get my commission in the Air Force, which I did. There were all these tugs on my life: which way do I want to go? I had this craving to know even more about astronomy.

Carolyn Hadlock:

It sounds like you had a strong path, but there were a lot of "ors"—do I do this or that? Is there a specific moment you can think of when you felt, "Astronomy, this is it for me"? We talk about cravings, and you mentioned craving to learn more about astronomy.

Mike Weasner:

In 1960, '61, I was in seventh grade—my first opportunity to get into school band. I started playing trumpet, but I still had that science and astronomy interest. Later in 1961, I really started leaning toward astronomy because we had beautiful night skies in Seymour back in the '60s and '50s. I enjoyed being out under the night sky, reading about astronomy, astrophysics, chemistry, math, physics in general. I was starting to enjoy that, even though I was still in seventh and eighth grade.

In some of the magazines I was reading, I saw ads for telescopes. So I asked, "Hey Mom, can you give me a telescope for Christmas?" She finally agreed. It was a small telescope, a little three-inch mirror. I couldn't wait till Christmas day to open it up. As I started using that telescope, going out and seeing things with my own eyes through the eyepiece, that really instilled and fed that craving for astronomy.

Jillian Ramsey:

Your mother was clearly a core influence in your interest in astronomy. There's a moment in your book where you were both outside and she said she wished she could see the stars through your eyes. And you said, "No, I wish I could see the stars through your eyes." Could you tell us about that moment?

Mike Weasner:

In the early 1960s, this neighbor lady came over. I had gotten so involved in astronomy and the night sky—I knew all the constellations. These stars were connected by lines, so no matter where I looked in the night sky, I would see a sky chart with lines connecting all these stars. That was somewhat annoying to me—I could not ignore those lines I saw in the printed charts. When she came over and said that to me, I said, "Yeah, geez, I'd like to see it like you see it because I don't see it that way anymore." It resonated with her because she wanted to see it like I saw it, and I wanted to see it like she saw it.

Maiza Munn:

In your book, you write about everything you've done in your life. Most people would organize it by "my Air Force years" or "my space shuttle years," but you chose time over direction—dividing it up by decades. What does that say about how you see the world?

Mike Weasner:

I had never planned to write an autobiography, but because of things I started doing in the 1990s around astronomy, so many people were asking me to write it. As I was writing, I realized that every decade, something specific was going on. I was in school until the 1970s, so that decade of the '60s, then the '70s, then I started working in the '80s. There were pretty distinct demarcation points for the switch in decades. I organized the book by decades, and that wasn't intentional—it just worked out that way.

Other people's lives will have other demarcation points—getting married, going to college, being in the military. There are certain points in everyone's life where something happens that may change what you're going to do. In my case, there were all these meanderings—successes, failures, which I talk about in the book. But this love of astronomy and love of IU kept pulling me back to this center point in my life.

Carolyn Hadlock:

As you were moving on that path through the universe, did it feel at the time like there were detours, or did it seem like different ways of reaching where you ended up? Sometimes looking back, things make more sense than when you were going through them.

Mike Weasner:

There were detours, no doubt. When I was at IU and then at the University of Wisconsin working on my graduate degree, I was in ROTC. I was going to go into the Air Force to be a scientist—that was my number one goal. Then circumstances made me change my mind.

A friend of mine took me up as his first passenger after he got his private pilot's license through Air Force ROTC. I said, "Yo, this is kind of neat." The summer before that, I got to fly in a jet trainer when I was at Air Force ROTC summer camp. When I put those two together, I said, "Geez, whether I'm flying a jet or a little small prop job out of the local airport, this flying is pretty exciting. It's a new way to see the world, a new way to experience the environment around me." I fell in love with flying.

After that private pilot ride, I went back to the commandant of the ROTC unit in Wisconsin and said, "Sir, I want to be a pilot." He said, "Sign here." So I signed up to be an Air Force pilot and did that for many years. My goal then was to rise up through the ranks—be commander of fighter squadrons, be a wing commander. I never expected that would change. Then I ended up working on the Air Force's space shuttle program in California, which opened up even more doors after I got out of the Air Force.

There was this major detour, but while I was working in the late 1990s, I migrated back toward astronomy when I got a new telescope. That has stayed with me. I still have the telescope I got back then. I still have the telescope my mother got me in 1961.

Carolyn Hadlock:

As an astrophysicist, engineer, fighter pilot, and avid Star Trek fan, you spent your whole life reaching for the future. When you're always looking ahead, do you feel like you miss what's right in front of you? Or is the opposite true—does reaching for tomorrow make you pay closer attention to today because you know how it's all connected?

Mike Weasner:

I like this phrase you're using: reaching for tomorrow. The space program was just getting started in the 1950s when I was a kid, and I was getting excited about it. That was a tomorrow I wanted to see happen, that I knew I wanted to help make happen. I didn't expect it would happen the way it did, but it was still something I was reaching for.

Then you get into college and you've got to worry about next week's exam, about graduation. Once I started working as a pilot in the Air Force, a lot of that other stuff sat in the background for a long time. But the Space Shuttle program was starting to come on board, and I started thinking about what else I could do later in my life. Then this opportunity to be on the Air Force Space Shuttle Program dropped into my lap. I got that job, and it opened up so many more doors within NASA, within the Air Force, and within the aerospace industry.

You never want to give up on whatever your goal is when you're thinking about reaching for tomorrow. Some things you may be able to do on your own. I did a lot of that. But they also may just drop into your lap—you never expect them, and here it is. This door magically opens. Walk through it.

Carolyn Hadlock:

I think that's a really interesting distinction you just made. Obviously the people in this room are all thinking about tomorrow, and that tomorrow is sooner than probably anybody expected or wanted. But you said something important: "I knew I wanted to have this kind of tomorrow. I didn't get there the way I thought I would, but I still got there." Talk about having that end destination and not worrying so much about organizing and orchestrating all the events that lead to that moment.

Mike Weasner:

Whether you're working as a fighter pilot putting your bombs on target or working in the aerospace industry thinking about technical stuff—there's always in the back of anyone's mind: Am I making a difference? Is this important beyond the paycheck?

It may be this idea my mother had for me or this dream Mr. Patton saw in me—this teaching thing. But education is more than just teaching one plus one equals two. It's teaching about how you respond to life, to challenges, to failures, to successes. When I was working in the aerospace industry after I got out of the Air Force, there were all these things where, because of my background, my degree, what I know, there were certain things I could influence. I was fortunate enough to have those influences on people and organizations and be successful in that.

That turned into this later public outreach I did with astronomy and dark sky advocacy that IU acknowledged with the bicentennial medal. That was obviously unexpected. The dean of the college came to a local Arizona state park and presented that medal to me in 2019. I was there doing public outreach, and the timing of getting that award was incredible recognition—not only of me, but of everybody who influenced my life all the way through.

Carolyn Hadlock:

There's an interesting idea here about trusting the universe, which is a very scary thing to do. But you literally trusted the universe, and it got you exactly where you needed to be.

Mike Weasner:

Yes. No complaints about my life. Even with all the failures—in my autobiography, I talk about my failures, and I don't talk about them just to say, "Oh, we're sorry that happened to you." I talk about how you recover from the failures.

Maiza Munn:

This season is featuring IU alumni who have wrestled with desire and who have been shaped and reshaped by what they've wanted, what they've been denied, and what they've discovered along the way. You've had several setbacks—having to leave the Air Force ROTC program, your divorce—but you persevered on that path through the universe. What lessons about craving and desire would you frame as advice for students preparing for life post-college?

Mike Weasner:

When you're going through college and you're taking those exams, yeah, if you stumble a little bit, but it's still something you crave, eat it and then say, "I'm going to get better. I will learn from this mistake." Whatever mistakes happened to me—that either I caused or just the luck of fate hit me upside the face—said, "We're going to slap you down a little bit and see if you get up." Well, I got up. People need to say, "Yeah, when something knocks you down, knocks you for a loop, if the person or organization or company that knocks you down is going to win if you stay down, don't let them win." That was my approach to all those failures.

That medical thing in the Air Force when I was in ROTC at IU was a big downer. I was doing really well freshman and sophomore years in ROTC and at the university. The commandant said he was distressed to tell me he had to let me go for two years, but I could get back in as a graduate student. That became motivation to go to graduate school, which I would not have done had that medical thing not occurred.

Carolyn Hadlock:

On the flip side of pivoting and resilience and persevering—you had a moment where you tried to speak up about something in the space shuttle program and no one listened, specifically with the Challenger tragedy. Talk about that and how you would advise people to speak up and then reconcile when they don't listen to you.

Mike Weasner:

You have to raise questions no matter what you're doing, no matter who you're talking to. But you also have to present answers. At that time in my life, I didn't really give them the answers I wanted them to adopt. I just asked the question. That was another teaching experience for me that said, "Okay, anytime I'm questioning somebody else's beliefs, I need to present them with an alternative to their beliefs that they can sign up to."

Carolyn Hadlock:

I think that's a really valuable lesson. It's very easy to recognize the problem, but if you don't have a solution—and something you said is key here—that lives inside their operating system of beliefs. That is the hardest thing to do, but that's really valuable advice for these guys as they move forward in their careers: speak up, but not just when something's wrong. Offer a solution, but inside the belief system of the person you're trying to persuade.

Sarah Morley-Lozano:

You started out observing but evolved to sharing. For 35 years, you kept your logs private—just between you and the stars. Then suddenly in 1996, you started sharing everything. What changed, and when did you realize those stars weren't just for you, but for everyone around you as well?

Mike Weasner:

When I started that telescope website back in 1996, I said, "I want to share this information I'm learning with people. I want to get them excited about astronomy. I want to tell them what they could do with whatever they happen to have. I want to tell them they don't need to spend a lot of money on one of these big, high-end fancy telescopes. They can spend a little bit of money and get a smaller telescope." Yeah, that's probably going to make them want a higher, more expensive telescope later on, but that's okay too.

I started doing that website back in 1996. If you think about that time, the World Wide Web had just started, and I had started doing web stuff at the company. So I said, "I'm going to do this personal website." That website is still there today. It's probably one of the longest-running websites on the World Wide Web.

Carolyn Hadlock:

Isn't it the largest amateur astronomy website in the world in terms of traffic?

Mike Weasner:

It's probably up there now. And again, that's one of the reasons people were saying, "Write your autobiography," because they wanted to know more about me because of all that public outreach I started doing back in 1996.

Carolyn Hadlock:

Before we go, can you tell us about the Dark Sky Initiative that you helped bring into reality?

Mike Weasner:

A little over 30 years ago, a nonprofit organization started up in Tucson, Arizona, called the International Dark-Sky Association. A couple of years ago, it renamed itself DarkSky International. It's a worldwide organization with worldwide impacts—not only on people, but businesses and local, state, federal, and national governments around the world. They prepare guidelines and do research on health reasons, wildlife reasons, ecological reasons—why all this artificial light at night that we've gotten a little overboard with doesn't need to be as bright as we have it, doesn't need to be this white-looking light. It should be more down in this amber color like we used to see from streetlights before the LED revolution.

DarkSky International promotes public education for everybody around the world, and it's being successful. We see more and more outdoor lighting codes getting on board with protecting the night sky. We see more cities trying to do the right things with their streetlights—dimming them down later at night, dimming them in places where there's no traffic. If nobody's walking, why do you need to have your lights on? If your parking lot is lit up all night long, nobody's in your parking lot. There are reasons to do our lighting better, and that's what DarkSky International tries to educate people about.

I've been doing that advocacy. I led the effort to get our local state park, Oracle State Park, designated as an International Dark Sky Park in 2014, which changed a lot of things in my life.

Jillian Ramsey:

I'm shifting gears a little bit. I wanted to read you an excerpt from our manifesto: "They've learned that craving doesn't make us weak. It makes us alive. Do not shrink your hunger to fit into a smaller world. Let it move you. Let it break you open. Let it build you anew, because craving is not the end—it's just the beginning, the spark before the fire." You are an educator and an advocate who is not afraid to change policy. What do you want young people to understand about following what calls them?

Mike Weasner:

When you have a craving for the universe, you can't have a much bigger craving than that. But whether you're craving to help people with their health and want to become a doctor, whether you have a creative craving to share information like in media schools—it doesn't matter what the scale of that craving is. There are ways you can positively improve people's lives, which is what we're trying to do with these podcasts. You can improve the environment, which I'm doing with the dark sky advocacy. You can improve so many things with your craving.

You can also take your craving and say, "Yeah, I'm just going to study this thing because that's exciting to me. Maybe I'll write a book someday about this craving and teach other people about this thing, whatever this thing is." But you're still ultimately sharing that craving with other people. Even if it's just with your spouse or your children, you're sharing that craving. No matter what the scale of that craving is, share it.

Carolyn Hadlock:

All right. Well, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure. Unless you guys have anything else or any parting comments you'd like to leave with us, I think we can say thank you and wrap this up.

Mike Weasner:

Just a parting comment: I certainly wish all the current students at Indiana University who are going to watch this podcast well. Yeah, they're going to struggle with some of those exams, but they'll get past them. They're going to struggle with finding a job. They're going to get past that. They're going to make some major influences on this future life on this planet. I applaud them for what they're doing right now. Stick with it.

Carolyn Hadlock:

All right. Thank you so much, Mike. Thank you so much for listening and watching this episode. This episode was created and produced at the IU Media School as part of The Beautiful Thinkers Podcast, IU Edition. To follow along this season, check out @TheBeautifulThinkers on Instagram and LinkedIn. Special thanks to Angela Karaher for our music and all the students who researched and recorded this episode: Sarah Morley-Lozano, Jillian Ramsey, and Maiza Munn.