Business Innovators Radio - Everyday Spacer Pam Hoffman Shares Simple Ways to Explore Space Now

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. Hi, everyone. This is Dr. Tammy Patzer. And today, this is a really exciting guest, Pam Hoffman. She is the brilliant mind behind Everyday Spacer. Pam is not only a best-selling author, but she's also an amazing. instructor and a passionate advocate for making space exploration accessible to everyone. She has produced the National Space Society's 14th International Space Development Conference

Starting point is 00:00:45 and has been an influential figure in various space, astronomy, and science organizations. Her mission with Everyday Spacer is to show regular folks, like me, how they can personally and directly participate in space exploration, science, and astronomy. I am really excited today because we're going to take a little deep dive into Pam's inspiring journey and discover how we can all become everyday spacers. Welcome, Pam. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Starting point is 00:01:24 It's really easy and it's very exciting and very safe. well. I mean, the whole family can get involved and really have a lot of fun. The first time you look through a telescope at something like Jupiter or Saturn and see moons around Jupiter or the rings of Saturn is just mind-boggling for most people and you hear a lot of ooze and awe. That's great. I think it's, I mean, whenever I look up into the sky and I see if, you know, maybe it's a planet or there's some some phenomenon, you know, going on. It is very exciting because it always makes you think about that age-old question, you know, who else is out there?

Starting point is 00:02:09 And I just have to believe that we can't be alone out in this. And it just does not make sense to me that there'd be one planet with the only life. But yeah, that's a whole other story. Either way, it would be fantastical if we are alone or if we're not. Yeah. It is. I don't know. Because then you'd go, wow, we are really special.

Starting point is 00:02:33 It is very interesting. So tell me what inspired you to create Everyday Spacer and what is your mission with this project? Well, thank you very much. The whole inspiration was kind of funny because I created a blog and I really left a placeholder there called Everyday Space. I was going to watch for people what they really were interested in and kind of a marketing thing, really. And it stuck. The everyday spacer placeholder kind of grew legs and kind of came alive on its own. It was its own thing after a while.

Starting point is 00:03:15 So, okay, let's go with that. I love that because a lot of things that I do, it is. It's this in inkling or an inspiration. and you take action on it. And like you said, oh, I just put a little spaceholder, literally a space holder there. And it becomes. And that is how I was a newspaper editor. And that's always how I viewed my weekly newspaper was that it took on a life of its own.

Starting point is 00:03:51 And so I get that exactly. So you also have a weekly show on Friday nights. Yep, Friday nights at 9 p.m. Pacific time. We go live. We actually broadcast live. And we talk about cool space, you know, topics. There are citizen science projects. We have a guest sometimes.

Starting point is 00:04:15 I started doing something called profiles recently. And those have been very popular because we delve into the life of someone. They may be gone. or they may be here. We've done both, and it's always a revelation for us and for our audience to learn more about this particular person who did something very interesting involving either space exploration, science, or astronomy. And there's a lot of them out there. I imagine there are, and that is interesting because for many of us, you know, for me, what is my first introduction to space. it was probably Star Trek.

Starting point is 00:04:55 Oh, very cool. Yeah. And Captain Kirk and Spock. And if you look at those old Star Tracks and you go, when they had the communicator, or they had the video view and they were talking to the people in space, just like what we're doing now or the cell phone. I mean, all of it. I just said, look, if they were basically telling us what the tools were in the future.

Starting point is 00:05:22 So I always think that's so amazing. So you have your Friday night show. That sounds like if you have kids or if you're just interested in space, that would be one of those great shows to watch. Where is this show? Where does it go live? How do you access it? So we do have a broadcast that's live, but it goes to three places.

Starting point is 00:05:50 Two of them are Facebook pages. and one of them is the YouTube channel. It's everyday spacer, same as the name of what we're doing. And it's great because our audience can actually leave a comment, and then we flash that up on the screen. And we have the guest answer or we try to answer. It's very interactive. We really have a lot of fun.

Starting point is 00:06:12 And we'll sit there and go, boy, I wonder where this came from. Somebody in the audience will go and look it up and tell us it's wonderful. I really like that idea, that live interaction. We're on video and I keep seeing your itty-bitty book in the background. Can you tell me more about that book and what it's all about? Sure. So I was writing a blog for, like I said, I started the blog and it was called Everyday Spacer. Then I had about 300 articles about really things you can do.

Starting point is 00:06:49 and I'm talking about really a huge range of things. I mean, you can apply to contests and win prizes and money. You can go out and look at things. You can join other people doing things. It's wonderful. So I thought, oh, I want to write a little book. I was thinking something you could stick in your pocket that had a whole bunch of just things you could do. Real simple, like almost a list of things you could do.

Starting point is 00:07:16 and I encountered Susie on Facebook doing the EityBitty book and I thought, whoa, wouldn't that be a great collaboration to do an itty-bitty book about things you can do in space? And these are very specific formulaic books where you have 15 simple or whatever it is. In my case, it's simple ways to get involved in space exploration right now. So every single one of them is you can open the book to anywhere in the book and you can sit down and you can do the thing. that I describe. It's very fun. That is really cool because so many people are looking for things to do.

Starting point is 00:07:56 I'm going to get a copy of your little itty bit because I like the concept, explore space now, like right now. And I have little grandchildren, three and four, and then I have other grandchildren who are older. But specifically, I think if you start young and, you know, Just point out, hey, look it up there and do these fun things related to space. I think I signed up for, there was something where I think you could have your name included in one of these space missions. Yep.

Starting point is 00:08:32 And I did that. I sent my grandchildren and mine and, you know, the whole family's names are somewhere in, somewhere on a space. Fabulous. So I just thought that was kind of a cool. thing. So how long have you been doing this? And what is like something that you have just found to be just like, whoa, fascinating? So I've been involved with space exploration, science and astronomy type of activities since, well, my friend says late 80s, but I call it 1991 because that's kind of when I got in earnest about it. I've created the everyday spacer.

Starting point is 00:09:16 sort of, you know, supply of things to do, projects, blog, the website, the online show in 2012. August of 2012 was when I set that blog up, the placeholder, and I started writing. I didn't know where it was going. I just started writing articles about cool things you could do involving space exploration science and it's from me. So in all the things that you've done, what do you think? think is the most interesting thing that you've ever uncovered or heard? I would say one of the most interesting things that has happened is that for a very long time,

Starting point is 00:10:01 it was very exciting, and then it started getting really dull, like there were no real launches, no, after the Apollo, and then all of a sudden we start seeing commercial, like, you know, SpaceX and Blue Origin, and now. And you talked about your grandchildren, I think their lives will be very wrapped up in something involving space experts and science astronomy, even if it's staying on Earth and bringing it back to the garden planet that it is. And there's nowhere else in the solar system quite like planet Earth. And we probably would benefit by getting the stuff off Earth that kind of isn't really appropriate to be here. heavy-duty manufacturing that makes a lot of mess, things like that can be on an asteroid that's just a rock floating in space.

Starting point is 00:10:56 It has no ecosystem. And whatever we do in the future will have some sort of connection with this. I mean, even if you look at like a NASA spin-offs, they have a publication every year. It's what has benefited the world that NASA kind of brought to people. and every year it's an amazing array of wonderful things. I mean, every part of our lives has been affected by space exploration,

Starting point is 00:11:28 all of the electronics that make like our little cell phones work. Those were brought on because, well, they had to be small. They had to reduce the weight and the space for it to go up there. And, I mean, I've read stuff about boats and tennis shoes and just almost anything you can imagine. It is. It's mind-boggling. And of course, the big story we've all heard is that Tang was invented because of the space program. I don't know if that's really true, but I know when I was going up, that they always said that Tang, which is basically orange powder that you mix with water, and it tastes like orange. It tastes pretty good, actually, when it's cold. But

Starting point is 00:12:17 it's so interesting to me like what you said and how cool would it be if all of the pollutants and all of those manufacturing things could be done somewhere else and and so that the earth could stay like you said the garden place or the paradise that it is when I was little I used to say I was from Mars. And I always, and now it sounds like that could have been a possibility because of the things that they're saying about Mars. So I always think that's very interesting about the different planets and where they're at in their, I guess, development of what's going on with them. So there used to be water on Mars and we don't know if that brought life with it too. Well, yeah, I mean, the elements of life, what do they say? Water is one of the things that is like a sign that there

Starting point is 00:13:20 could be life and, you know, different things. So it, I think the everyday spacer, it's just, for me, it's just making me, it's like my mind is going, wow, what about this? What about this? Because of, now I kind of get why it's everyday spacer. It's kind of that double entendre of your space of expanding your mind and then of course the acknowledging space. Can you tell me this story about this telescope mirror that you worked on? You actually ground a telescope mirror. How would you do that? And why would you do that?

Starting point is 00:14:05 I took a class. My friend had built one and she was going back to build another one. and if you've heard of anything, something called aperture fever, astronomers want to go bigger and to gather more light. So she was going back and she wanted some company. And it was very good deal at the time, I think, 50 bucks. And we worked for about nine months. And everything was supplied with it.

Starting point is 00:14:32 We had a wonderful, wonderful instructor. And he'd been doing this for years. It was the last year he was going to do it. Some people would come back the next year. but that was it. I had to finish. And it's not that hard. It takes some doing. It takes time. And I think an expert would be helpful. There is a place in Los Angeles that you can make a mirror for a telescope right now. They're going every Wednesday. They hold the class. So it's a possibility out there. And yeah, like I said, it wasn't that hard. It just took some doing. And I think an expert to help would be really, really beneficial. official, but there are places online that you can go and look and really figure it out on your own if you really wanted to or you had to if you were not very near anything that would even possibly support a telescope making class.

Starting point is 00:15:30 That's just such a, I don't know that where I look there, for all I know there are, now that I'm thinking about it and all the listeners should go check out what is going on. with space and space exploration where you live. But if you can't, you, you've taught different adult education courses and online workshops. Do you still do that? I haven't done that for a little while.

Starting point is 00:16:00 I think things really changed when everything got shut down and it hasn't quite come back. Maybe I'll look at it again. But I think the Friday night show is wonderful. We do have a lot of people. And just to point out, Tammy, that if people do want some help finding these things, because I kind of know the right keywords to use to look for stuff, and I may actually know somebody in your area, I would love to help.

Starting point is 00:16:23 And if you're okay with it, I could give my email address. Yeah, give everybody how, number one, we want people to go get your any-bitty book because that gives you at least 15 simple ways. to do your space explanation now and your email, if you have a website, a Facebook, just give everybody all that contact information because I'm sure there are people out there that are like you've sparked that sense of,

Starting point is 00:16:57 wow, there's something out there. You know, again, you can tell how old I am. E.T. remember when the little, you know, the little finger And I still remember that because my niece was like three years old at the time. And we took her to see that. And she held her little finger up and pointed it. It was so cute. So yes, go ahead and give everybody your contact info.

Starting point is 00:17:25 Oh, sure. It's really easy. The best place is Pam, P-A-M. And then the at symbol, little everydayspacer.com. There's an everydayspacer.com website. But the one that's a little bit better with the blog is spacer. pamhoffman.com. So yeah, any of those will be

Starting point is 00:17:42 fabulous. And I actually have a freebie for people if they want to write to me for that. What's the freebie? Well, I created something that I call a meteor shower chart. There are 900 meteor showers a year which 100 of those

Starting point is 00:17:58 have been verified and you'll probably hear about two of them on the news. They do actually talk about it. You know, the lean-in. I've written I've created a chart. It's just one page. You could put it on your wall and look at it every day if you want. It's 13 of the kind of major or the meteor showers I think would be good to look for. So if someone wants to send me an email, Pam, and everydayspacer.com, I will make sure you get a PDF of the meteor shower chart. The meteor shower chart. That's pretty cool. I have to send you a copy. Yeah, you should. Now, are you working? on like a science magic show right now? I am looking at doing science magic for little kids.

Starting point is 00:18:46 Probably at the Boys and Girls Club. We really love the Boys and Girls Club. And we want to support them any way we can. So if it works out, I'm going to start creating, because I think that would be very memorable. And of course, when I've gone to magic shows, how do they do that? And I've kind of had an interest.

Starting point is 00:19:06 I figured out some of the magic things. My grandfather did a really cool banana thing. It's like abercadabra and he opens it up and it's in three pieces. It's like, how do you do that? And I found a thing and it was like, ooh, now I know. Interesting. It's so fun to have like the back story. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:19:26 Well, magic and space, they just seem to go together. I mean, I think many of us, like I'm trying to remember, I'm sure we, all made the model of the planets. Yeah. That was probably something we did. But I just, and of course, if you're into art, like, starry, starry night, you know, some of that artwork and everything. Then, of course, the Trekkies.

Starting point is 00:19:53 And, of course, if you're younger, you're probably into, like, next generation or whatever the other ones. But I'm, like, from the old original days, we used to go home from school. Me too. And it would be on, I think, at 4 o'clock. And my friend, she wasn't supposed to have company. And so we'd watch Star Trek. And I'd run, you know, leave before her mom got home from work.

Starting point is 00:20:18 So I have lots of kind of cool memories. You know, and then one time her mom came home early. And, of course, hey, you're not supposed to have company. But then it was me. And it was like, oh, okay, it's okay. Then after that I could go over there because she knew that, you know, there wasn't any trouble going on. So you, being a everyday spacer, do you think that you have a unique personality?

Starting point is 00:20:49 Any quirky things we should know about you? Yeah, well, I've got music going on in my head all the time, but I think a lot of people do. Not everybody does. I fixed the toilet with a styrofoam a couple of ones. How did you do that? It was leaking. I looked at it. I'm like, oh, cut it up, put it in. voila, no more leak. I don't know. Just, what do they call? They say, I have a knack. I have a knack for mechanical things. Well, I'm one of those people who can't tell they're right from their left. Oh, no.

Starting point is 00:21:26 So I, somebody, like I, when you said that, I'm sitting there going, I wonder how she did that, because I don't have that, whatever, that spatial ability. So is the everyday spacer, is this what you do for a living or do you do something else and this is your big, brilliant hobby? It is a vocation. I would love to do this more professionally. I would love to, you know, take people on tours and show them cool things and really help them enjoy the various things they would like to. do involving space exploration right now. I am doing something else for actual money, right now, which, you know, it's great. I'm helping, I'm helping Susie with the books, with the Itty Bitty Books.

Starting point is 00:22:18 Oh, great. It's really nice to help someone with their business, and I've learned a tremendous amount. But you, when we're talking about Susie, everyone, we're talking about Susie Pruden. Susie Pruden. And she is the publisher of your amazing, Idy Bidip. books and I don't know by now there's probably hundreds of them well in your bio you have helped produce the National Space Society's 14th international space development conference so what did you do to that sounds like quite an adventure to produce a big conference like that yeah was a lot of

Starting point is 00:23:00 the organizing and bringing the people together and picking the ones the right person for the right job we'd actually done locally in the Midwest, 10 of them before, you know, we actually did the international one. So it wasn't a big stretch. It was more people. It was a little bit more to schedule. And like I said, we had a team. We had folks helping. My daughter helps. He was like 12. I think fun. Yeah, I think she really benefits young people to see you doing what you love. So I think she's very accomplished and happy now because she's doing what she really loves. So it's good. It makes sense. So if somebody is interested in space, what would you say, excuse me, what would you say the basic, like, starter kit should be? If somebody decides, wow,

Starting point is 00:24:06 I'm really interested in space. What should they get that it wouldn't be very expensive that they might even have at home to maybe get started with space? I mean, I can think that, yeah, you can just start by looking up. Yep. But that's a great place to start. Absolutely. In fact, there's a really cool program that's happening right now. They have campaigns that last for 10 days.

Starting point is 00:24:30 It starts today. Globe at night. It's online. Globe at night. you can go over there and follow the six steps and look for the objects that they suggest because they're trying to come to understand what the world looks like at night from various places in the world. And lots and lots of people contribute to this. What you do is you go outside and you look up in your sky at your area and you report back to the site.

Starting point is 00:25:00 Or you could report on your phone, Globe at night. I think it's dot org. But if you just do a search for globe at night, you'll make a real contribution. We actually heard from someone who's on the board that this is very important work to know what's happening in the world for, you know, visibility, being able to see. It's called light pollution. So what is the light pollution around the world for a span of time? So this is a pretty major project that everyone can help with. It's really going outside and reporting what you see.

Starting point is 00:25:34 They give you charts and you tell them it's like one of the others, about six of them, I think. It's a really wonderful, simple way to get started. I do talk about a lot of things in the book. If you're like homebound, you can look up things like astronomy picture of the day. That's chapter one. I talked about that. And if you go through all the chapters,

Starting point is 00:25:54 you'll figure out how to send something to space for free in chapter 15. That's pretty cool. Yeah, so it is. Again, everybody get a copy of Pam Hoffman's itty-bitty book. Tell me the name of it exactly. It's your amazing. Itty-bitty, Explore Space Now book. Explore Space Now book.

Starting point is 00:26:19 Yep, it's 15 simple ways to get involved right this second. And literally open the book and there's stuff to do. I just think that's phenomenal. So, Pam, thank you so much. And before I let you go, is there anything else you'd like to add? I would just encourage people to get the meteor shower turk because really it's one of the most exciting things that I've found people want to look into. And it's very simple to do. You do want to look for a good spot.

Starting point is 00:26:50 And when I say good spot, you want somewhere that's kind of dark. And the meteor showers happen. And like I said, there's 13 kind of major ones. It's not every single month, but it is a lot of months of the year. And you can see this from anywhere in the world. Oh, one of the other things that would be fabulous for people, too, is to look for the International Space Station. It's very easy to see if it's overhead, is the knowing when, where to look.

Starting point is 00:27:23 That's a factor. There are two really good sources that I know of. For finding it, you can get a text or an email from NASA. And I think that one's called Spot the Station. A simple search for NASA Spot the Station would give you that. You want to re-engage once a year. We'll send you a reminder that, you know, hey, it's been a year.

Starting point is 00:27:45 Would you like to continue to get these either texts or emails? Either one. The site I really prefer is called Heavens Above. I think it's Heavens Dash Above.com. They maintain it from Germany, DSLR, I think, is their organization in Germany. It's their space program. They actually help you find all kinds of things, not just the space station, but like the Chinese Tian Gonggong space station.

Starting point is 00:28:13 You've got the brightest objects that you can, there's a lot of things up there. I mean, rocket boosters and space stations and satellites, various satellites you can see. Some are a little bit easier than others. If you have really good eyes, you're young, not like me, you can see a lot more things. So, yeah, tell your grandbabies. Wow, that's really exciting. So just in the last minute, you've out, you know, thrown out a lot of things. And that is a really good point that because of the Internet, you have access to finding out information from all over the world.

Starting point is 00:28:54 It isn't just NASA. that it isn't just the United States. It has space programs. So it really is opening up the whole globe. So everyone, make sure that you take Pam up on her offer and send her an email and ask her questions and go to her blog and read that.

Starting point is 00:29:19 And I definitely get the book. I think that getting the book is probably your best start because she's going to give you 15 things you can do right now to just start with your space adventure. So thank you so much, Pam. Thank you. This has been very wonderful. Thank you. Everyone, this is Dr. Tammy Patser.

Starting point is 00:29:40 Go make it a wonderful day. Thanks for listening to Business Innovators Radio. To hear all episodes featuring leading industry influencers and trendsetters, visit us online at Business Innovators Radio. Radio.com today.

Business Innovators Radio - Everyday Spacer Pam Hoffman Shares Simple Ways to Explore Space Now

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