I first got interested in the idea of going to Mars when I was 3-years-old.
She wants to be the first, or one of the first, to go to Mars.
She's a regular kid with a dream that she's willing to pursue.
Space flight is very risky business.
You have to take it serious or you will die.
If the option was to go to Mars and never come back, I would still want to go and be
a part of the mission.
When Alyssa was younger, I remember Alyssa coming to me and asking me,
had human beings ever been to Mars?
And I explained to her that, you know, we'd been to the moon, but not Mars.
But it would be her generation to become the Mars generation and go to Mars.
This would be something really cool.
I mean, going to space and then land on other planets.
Little did I know that I would be raising a child that I am supporting
to leave this planet.
I do everything that every other normal kid does except on the side, I'm training to become
an astronaut and go to Mars.
Kids are always told you can do whatever you want to do.
You can be whatever you want to be.
Alyssa has heard that, but she has accepted that, "I'm going to have to work really, really
hard to get to where I want to be."
She's the youngest to ever graduate from Advance Space Academy, was the first person to complete
all NASA Space Camps in the world,
got her Rocket License before getting her driver's permit.
Currently I have my basic scuba diving certification and I'm working on my advanced.
She's doing the international baccalaureate.
So she's doing college level classes in 10th grade.
Multi-lingual education -
so she's taking her classes in four languages: English, French, Spanish, Chinese.
She's got the right mental attitude.
She's doing everything she can physically here on earth to prepare herself for that
journey to Mars.
I don't think there's anything specifically that makes it easier for me or makes it something
that others can't do.
It's just something that I've kind of really focused myself on what I want to accomplish.
By the mid 2030's, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to earth.
Going to Mars is absolutely essential for continuing of the human species as a whole.
It is very important that we keep exploring because it has all ready been said that a single
planet species will become extinct.
Just going to Mars is that first baby step in showing people how we can move on from planet
Earth, which is kind of like our little cradle now.
We're destroying our own planet.
If we don't continue to explore, we could end up not having a planet to live on.
So even though there are a lot of risks in going to Mars, I believe that the rewards
are so much greater.
Yeah, space is a dangerous place and, yeah, there's so much that I'm giving up for it,
but at the end of the day, there's so much good that can come from this mission.
The big plans for Mars is eventually terraforming it, change Mars to kind of become kind of
like another Earth, to have a second home for humans to live on.
Um, that's checkmate.
Boo-ya!
There are companies that want to send one-way and colonize Mars and then are people like
NASA and ESA that are working together that want to have a return trip.
So I still have to look at it, as a father, that I'll have my child for 20 more years
and then may not ever see her again...
...and that's hard.
But for what she's wanting to do, I have to support her.
I have to let her go.
It's bigger than the two of us.
We know that the next 20 years together is going to be important because we know for
sure that those are 20 years that we can spend together.
Obviously it's not the best thing to be telling your daughter to go and...and go on the mission
to Mars and leave the planet, but I still know that he supports me anyway.
Every time Alyssa talks about going to space and how she can't get married and how she
can't have kids, it makes me sad because I'm saying, "Oh, she's going to leave me one day,"
but then I remember we might as well live now and when the future comes we'll be able
to accept it because we didn't waste time.
There are a multitude of challenges to become an astronaut.
You have to have the right mental attitude, you have the right health, you have to have
the right skills.
Last year we put out a call for the next cadre of astronauts.
We had thousands apply and we're accepting less than ten.
The biggest challenge for Alyssa is just trying to get everything done that she wants to have
for her unique resume.
Specifically for the Mars mission, I would say that they're even more precise about who
they want for that mission.
So thinking about all of that motivates me to put in the hard work now that I know to
build kind of a good resume that helps me standout from others when I do apply.
The opportunity to be one of the youngest people that's ever ventured into space, to
be a trailblazer, a pioneer, I think this is everything she's always wanted to do.
She just recently was accepted to Possum Academy.
She's the youngest person to ever be accepted to that program.
Basically, everyone who's ever gone through this program either has a college degree,
either has a masters, or has a PhD, or is working on any of those.
So they're all a lot older than I am.
What Possum Academy is, they are preparing people for space flight.
I will actually be certified to go to space.
I think it's really significant that Alyssa is a girl who has this huge dream to make
it to Mars.
She is someone that girls can look up to and say, "Hey, look at what she did.
Look at what this girl did who was the same as me once."
So it is important to inspire kids and also adults.
You can't let anyone take your dreams away from you.
No matter how crazy it might sound, follow that through and never give up on your dream.
The 2033 mission that they've always talked to us about, that's when the sun is going
to have the least amount of radiation going.
That's when Mars is going to be the closest that it's been in thousands of years.
That's when they'll have the technology perfected.
Yes, if she was a few years older or a few years younger, it may not be working out,
but the way doors have opened for her, it is definitely destiny working it's hand
that this kid is meant to go to Mars.
...And lift off....
Mars will be the greatest adventure ever.