Episode 14: A Unique Career at NASA and Mentorship with Herb Baker

Written By Emily Olsen
Join Emily and Alexa as they chat with Herb Baker whose career spanned five decades working with NASA. Herb shares incredible stories from his recent memoir, From Apollo to Artemis, and insights he has earned from his work in the broader space community. 

*Please note that this episode was recorded in September 2025.

Show Notes

Transcript

[intro: “Space” by Music_Unlimited]

Alexa

Hello and welcome to the Art Astra Podcast.  I’m Alexa Erdogan.

Emily

And I’m Emily Olsen. Today we have a friend and wonderful guest with us, Herb Baker. 

Herb retired from NASA in 2017 after 42 years of service in their acquisition office. He spent most of his career at the Johnson Space Center, JSC, in Houston supporting the Space Shuttle, Space Station, and Orion programs, but also worked at the Kennedy Space Center and at NASA headquarters. His last position was serving as the Manager of Operations Support Office at JSC, which provided support to the Flight Operations Office and included support to the Astronaut Office and Mission Control Operations. He is currently an officer on the board of directors for both the NASA Alumni League at JSC and for the Remembering Columbia Museum in East Texas. He also frequently speaks to students and other groups about NASA while volunteering for nonprofit organizations that promote STEM engagement including the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation and the Space Center Houston. He recently published his first book, a memoir titled, From Apollo to Artemis, Stories from My 50 Years with NASA. 

Welcome, Herb. We're so excited to have you! 

Alexa

Thank you for being here.

Herb Baker

Oh, it's my pleasure. Again, I love doing this. So thank you so much for inviting me. I'm looking forward to it.

Alexa

Yeah! So I'm so interested in such a wonderful biography. And it's always interesting to go to the very beginning to see how it all started. What motivated you to even start looking into NASA and working at NASA, and your career growth from there?

Herb Baker

That's kind of an interesting story for me because my family had moved to a little town called League City.  It's the first town south of Houston where the Johnson Space Center is, of course.

And so we moved here in 1960. And they opened what was then called, of course, the Manned Spacecraft Center – decided to build it. And it took a couple of years to build the Manned Spacecraft Center, which opened in 1964, I think, officially.

And so I was 12 years old and there was only one in the community, which was being kind of being built, the homes and such. There was only one middle school or junior high, whatever you want to call it, one high school. And so all of the first two classes of astronauts had been selected and were yeah working for NASA. And so they moved their families. And so all of the the kids of the first two groups of astronauts, who were my age, were suddenly my friends and classmates in middle school and then on through high school. So I you know I like to tell people I played on the seventh, eighth and ninth grade football teams in middle school with Frank Borman's son and Scott Carpenter's son, and you know, Grissom, Cooper, Carpenter, Schirra, Borman, Lovell, Eisley, Anders, Stafford – went to to high school with all of those kids. And so there was that. 

And then in 1969, summer…July, it was the summer between my junior and senior years high school, Apollo 11, of course, and the TV networks actually from all over the world, certainly ABC, NBC, and CBS and in the US, sent crews down from New York to the Manned Spacecraft Center, and they set up studios, trailers, mobile homes that they put on site, and they put a backdrop and a desk, of course, and a camera, and that was their studio.

And they invited astronauts and flight directors and other NASA folks in for interviews. And so while I was there– I think I put most of these in my book— I got to meet and I took photos of Alan Shepard and Dave Scott and Pete Conrad, all of whom walked on the Moon.

The ABC TV hired me because back then this was before videotape and the internet and such. And so when we filmed an interview with an astronaut or anyone else and wanted to broadcast it on TV, you had to physically move that film from Houston to New York. So they hired me to twice a day drive the 100 mile round trip back and forth to Houston Intercontinental Airport to drop that film off to be flown to New York so they could broadcast it on TV. And so I actually worked for ABC and did a little work for a couple of other news stations too, but for Apollo 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 13, I'd gone away to UT for Apollo 14, but I came back in the timing worked so I could cover Apollo 15 and a couple of the Skylab missions. So almost as far back as I can remember, I was right in the middle of everything that NASA was doing: in school with the kids or working for the TV networks covering the lunar landings. 

And so the funny thing is, (funny to me), I never, hate to admit, I never was one of those people who, “I want to be an astronaut when I grow up.” You know, I mean, it's like, well, it's no big deal. Everybody's an astronaut, right? And I was never really that good with science. And when I was in high school back then, it was chemistry and biology. That was the science that they offered. And I was much better in math. And so I decided to be a business major.

And so I'd gone away, like I said, to University of Texas at Austin and planned to get my degree in business. And I figured, well, okay, I won't have any trouble finding a job somewhere in private industry somewhere after I graduated –never never even dreaming that I might work for NASA someday.

Because I assumed, like I think most people, that everyone who worked there was either a scientist, an engineer, an astronaut, or maybe a doctor, right? Well, so I'll try to make this story short.

So I was working part-time. The IRS Regional Service Center for like five states is in Austin, just a few miles from the campus. And so I had a part-time job there while I was going to school to help pay my way through school. And while I was there, I would hear some of my coworkers talking about this civil service exam. That's the way you got a job with the government back in the 70’s, maybe before or after. You took a civil service exam. You could also get promotions that way, too. So there was this one exam called the PACE, P-A-C-E, Professional and Administrative Career Exam.

And I remember them talking about how you know it was really hard and you got scores in six different whatever skill, knowledge, aptitudes. So that they knew, depending on how you did and and one or more of those six areas, what job you might be best suited for if you did well enough on the test, right? And so when you registered for the test, and you know pencil and paper, you indicated on the form which cities with government agencies in them, again if you scored high enough and were offered the job, that you would be willing to move to. And of course, I put Houston because I lived here and never even thinking that NASA was a government agency, right? You don't really think of, I think most people don't, you know, like the Health and Human Services or the IRS or the Veterans Administration or something, you know.

And so anyway, again, I remember them talking about, you know, but this test is really hard and and you get a score in each of the six categories from 70 to 100. If you score below 70, they just don't give you a score. I guess they don't want embarrass you with a 45 or something, right? A But I thought, well, OK, I was always pretty good at taking tests. And I thought, “Well, I might as well. I don't have any other jobs planned. I'll take the test and see how I do.” So anyway, I took the test, got my scores back. I got the letter in the mail.

And in the six categories, I scored four one-hundreds and two ninety-eights. It was almost a perfect score. And you know I'm thinking, “Well, they sent me the wrong scores. This can't be mine…”

Emily and Alexa

[laughter]

Herb Baker

…I never dreamed of doing something like that. And so anyway, a couple of weeks later, the scores were sent out to the government agencies in those cities. And NASA called me and said, “Hey, would you like to come to Houston and interview for a job at the Johnson Space Center?” And of course I'm like, “Are you kidding me? You know, whoa, is tomorrow too soon?”

[laughter]

Herb Baker

“….You know, or tonight?” And so one last funny thing about that story is that the guy who interviewed me was, no surprise, the father of one of my friends in high school. And I don't know if that helped or not, but I'm sure it didn't hurt. And so 42 years later, I look back and think, thank goodness I heard my co-workers talking about that test and decided to take it because otherwise there's no way I would have ever had a career with NASA.

So anyway, that's that's my story, but which is, you know I was never an intern or a cooperative education student or anything like that, like most of the people I know. But so that's how it worked for me.

Alexa

I find it a very unique and interesting journey because like you said, I think a lot of people that we hear about at NASA or that we (Emily and I) have talked to, they do so sort of do like a conventional like “I always want to be an astronaut” and then like get in and then work their way up.

Herb Baker

Yeah, right, right.

Alexa

But it's also equally fascinating to hear like how space can bring people in from multiple interests and backgrounds and so many ways that you would find so surprising.

Herb Baker

Mhm! Yeah, I do have one story to tell. I mentioned working for the TV networks covering the Apollo 11, 12, 13, 15. People ask me sometimes what was my favorite story from those days. Of course, at that point, I haven't even started my professional career with NASA yet.

And so Apollo 12, November 1969, Pete Conrad was the third guy to walk on the moon. He was a commander. And of course they had some problems with being struck by lightning on the way up and John Aaron had to SCE to Aux and save the mission and all that stuff, which is a great story.

So when it was time to come home, a local Houston TV station wanted some film. This was not anything that needed to be sent to New York, just local Houston area.

They wanted to get film of the Conrad family watching on TV in their living room as Apollo 12 splashed down into the South Pacific. So they sent me and a cameraman to Pete Conrad's home. And so I'm standing in their living room watching with the family as Apollo 12 splashed down at the end of the mission.

And I remember that was fifty-six years ago. The funny thing about this is that I remember that like it was this morning. I won't even say yesterday. It was like this morning. I could draw you a floor plan of their house. I still remember walking in. The dining room was to the right. The kitchen was straight back to the left. The living room was over to the left. I remember where the TV was. There was a hallway back to the bedrooms, I'm sure.

So I remember when the filming was over, I walked with the cameraman into the dining room and he put the film in a canister, handed it to me. I got my car, drove back to NASA. There was a helicopter waiting for me. It was three o'clock in the afternoon. And this is local Houston TV station, wanted that film so badly for the five o'clock news that they didn't want to take a chance on me, I don't know, running out of gas or getting lost or having an accident or a flat tire or something. They rented a helicopter to fly me that 15 miles from NASA to their TV station.

I still remember getting in the helicopter. I'm… Again, I'm 17. I've never been in a helicopter, a little two-seater with clear glass, and I'm hanging on for dear life. And the pilot says, “Yeah, just got back from flying missions in Vietnam.”

[laughter]

Herb Baker

Again, what have I gotten myself into here? Zooming down the freeway, barely over the power lines. And I still remember there was no helipad or anything. So he had to land the helicopter across like four lanes of traffic where I had to run across with the film.

And I still remember, again, the details, walking into the building and there was a counter over to the right. And there was a woman. She knew I was coming. She was waiting for me. And I remember handing her the film and I don't remember anything after that.

Just the adrenaline just went [revving down noise].

[laughter]

I don't even remember the helicopter ride back home or, you know, to my car. And the way I remember the tiniest details of everything else for the previous three hours or so just blows my mind. Anyway, that's my favorite story from my days of working for the TV networks.

Emily

That's absolutely wild. That's so cool.

Alexa

[laughter]

Herb Baker

Yeah.

Emily

…I think, like, any 17-year-old in a commute by helicopter [laughter] would be. 

Herb Baker

Yeah, wow.

[laughter]

Emily

So that's your favorite story from your time at the TV network...

Herb Baker

Yeah, yeah.

Emily

…When you were writing all of your stories down for your book, were there any parts of your story that surprised you when you're reflecting on them or that particularly stuck out to you when recounting them over the NASA part of your career?

Herb Baker

You know, it's hard to pick out just one. A lot of memoirs are about how, oh, I overcame this terrible abuse or disease or something. And mine was just the opposite. [chuckling] It was all

great memories of cool things and nice people I got to meet. So it was a pleasure to write it. Also it was easier for me to do that because when I was working for the TV networks, (again, when I wasn't driving back and forth to the airport,) they would send me to the Public Affairs Office who laid out tables full of photos and flight plans and press kits and mission commentaries. And I would pick them up for the guys who were working there. And I also would pick up one for myself.

So I have press kits and flight plans and photos from the Apollo missions and mission commentaries and all kinds of other things. And I've saved them all. 56 years later, they're still in my closet. I’ve moved, y’know, carried them with me everywhere I've been. And so, as I was writing in the book, if I wanted to write something about Apollo or shuttle or station or Orion, I have about three foot high Rubbermaid containers in my closet and I just go pull it out and I've got all kinds of documents and letters and photos and everything. And so it's very easy to be very precise about who and when and where. 

And one time, I gave a speech (this was just a year or so ago), and another NASA person was in the office. And this was just a few months after I'd written my books. It was all very fresh in my mind. So I'm giving all these details. And after I finished speaking, she came up to me later. She said, “You have an amazing memory.”

[Laughter]

Herb Baker

So oh no, no, no, no. It's just because I was just looking at this stuff within the last couple of months. It's… I don't remember it from 50 years ago. 

But another thing people ask me sometimes, which kind of answers your question, is other than the Apollo 12 TV thing, what was my favorite memory from my actual professional career at NASA.

And I usually say it was getting to know and work with Apollo 13 astronaut Fred Haise because thinking back… So I was there with the TV networks on site when the explosion happened, the evening. And so like everyone else working in the news media, I didn't go to sleep that night. That whole couple of days is kind of burned into my memory, too. And so there was that.

And then fast forward from 1970 to 1977, and I'm working at JSC, and so is Fred Haise, although, you know, totally different buildings. I'm just a young guy, and he's the Commander of the Approach and Landing Test for the Space Shuttle Enterprise.

But I was right there for all of that, too. So that was ‘77. So fast forward another 10 years to 1987. And I, this is a long story, but I won't try to tell the whole story. I was sent to the Kennedy Space... And this was all kind of a result of the Challenger accident in January of ‘86. This is later in that year, because NASA decided to move the Space Station Program Office, which was in Houston, they decided to move it to Reston, Virginia.

And I was going to be awarding a contract to provide engineering to support to the Space Station Program Office, which was going to be in Houston. But since they moved it to Reston, Virginia, to be closer to headquarters, I got a call from the assistant administrator for procurement at NASA. And I still to this day don't know why he called me and not my boss or my boss's boss. But anyway, what he asked me was, “Hey, I know you were assigned to compete and award and administer this contract. But now it's no longer a JSC contract. It's a headquarters contract. And the folks up here have never bought anything much more than pencils and toilet paper.” Those were his exact words. He said, “I need someone with some experience with big contracts.” And, you know, I had been working on the contract to buy the Space Shuttle orbiter vehicles with Rockwell.

And he said, “Would you go to the Kennedy Space Center and work on the competition? And then once you award the contract and negotiate it, move up to Washington, D.C. to administer the contract.” And yeah what am I going to say? I'm fairly young and single, so it was not a big deal. And of course, so I said yes.

So anyway, I ended up spending a year at KSC and Grumman, who Fred had gone to work for because they had built the lunar modules and he had spent a lot of time there anyway, was now working for Grumman. And so when they won the contract, Grumman appointed him to be the new president of the division that was going to provide the engineering support. And so he and I negotiated this 10 year, $900 million dollar contract, and he signed it for Grumman and I signed it for NASA.

And I was in his office about once a week for a management tag up kind of thing to see how things were going. And I actually only did that for about a year or two. And then I got promoted and sent downtown D.C. to a different job. But anyway, he and I became friends. And for the last 30 years or so, we've lived just a few miles apart and are still good friends. In fact, now I have lunch or dinner with him at least once or twice a month. In fact, three times in the last couple of weeks, I've got to meet with him. And so, you know, I still fanboy over that. [I] will to the day I die.

In fact, I have one quick story. This was just a couple of days before Jim Lovell passed away, actually. We were having lunch, and he was talking about how, “Yeah,” he said, “I talk to Jim at least once every week, and he's doing okay, he's doing fine.” And then it was just, I don't know, within the next week that he passed away. And so, it's really none of my business, but I'm assuming it had to be something like a heart attack. It was sudden, whatever it was. But anyway, I asked him, and I think maybe you know, this is the 30th year anniversary that the movie came out. And so later this month, they're coming out with an IMAX version of Apollo 13.

And so I asked him, “You going to go see the movie?” And he said, “Nah, I know how it turns out.”

[laughter]

Herb Baker

But I mean, he was serious. I'm sure he's not gonna go see it. You know, it's just that, wow. [laughter] But just getting to ask him that question! So anyway, I think, yeah, he's all throughout my book, as I just talked about. And in fact, I devoted an entire chapter to him.

And so he's one of the few people I actually asked to read my book before I published it, because I wanted to be so certain that I did not get any facts wrong about anything referring to him. And he did mention– this was kind of funny. It wasn't really a correction. It was just kind of a clarification. And it wasn't even one of the big things he worked on. Most people don't realize that the plan had been because Skylab was falling back to Earth, he and Jack Lousma were going to fly a Shuttle flight and with a tug that they were going to attach to Skylab and boost it into a higher orbit. But the Shuttle was two years delayed in, you know, launching and so he finally resigned or retired from NASA and never did it. But anyway, it was some technical detail about that tug that was going to save Skylab. And so I fixed that and he liked everything else. So that made me feel really good.

Emily

Yeah, that's absolutely incredible.

So with your friendship with Fred Haise and also what you've been speaking about of going to high school with the children of astronauts and also just throughout your whole memoir, you're constantly highlighting these moments of community and just like the space industry at large and how interconnected it is. And are there any stories that you told in your memoir that you find especially resonate with people?

Herb Baker

Yeah, so a couple of things come to mind. One is…one of my favorite areas about JSC is the Astronaut Memorial Grove. I mean, some people don't even know about it. I think George Abbey started it after the Challenger accident, where they plant a tree and there's already a bunch of trees. They don't literally wait until the astronaut dies to plant the tree. They've been growing trees in the grove. And they dedicate a tree to every fallen astronaut. And they started with ‘07. It's behind the gate. So unless you have a badge and get on site at NASA, you probably don't even know it's there. And you certainly don't get to go visit it.

And so every holiday for, I don't know, as long as I can remember, they put lights around the trees during Christmas holidays. And they've always been all white lights. They wrap them around the base of the tree, except for one tree that had red lights. And people used to ask, “Why?” Because they'll drive by, you can see it. It's right next to the road. And so you can see it when you're driving by, but you just can't go on [base] and… and see it. And so they would ask, “Well, why does this one tree out of 20 of them or more with lights, all white and one with red lights, why is that?” And well, the reason is because it's Pete Conrad's tree.

And he was known for the quote that, “Well, if you can't be good, be colorful.” [laughter]

And so they decided when they dedicated his tree that during the holidays that they would make his tree colorful.

And then his really good friend and Apollo 12 crewmate, Alan Bean, when he passed away, who, of course, was an artist and painted lots of colors. So they decided to also give him a colorful tree. And his is multicolored lights, red and green and blue and red and yellow. And so they're the only two trees in the Astronaut Memorial Grove that don't have white lights during the holidays. 

But again, that's something that most people don't know about. And sometimes people who live in the area ask me about.

One other thing I've found, because I've done a lot of speaking and book signings and things, and some people have read my book and asked me about it, is… so this is 30 years ago. There was a shuttle flight that was delayed because a woodpecker punched holes in the foam of the external tank. He was in mating season and he was looking for a new home and he mistook the external tank for a tree, so… And they build their nests about six to eight inches deep and the foam was only about three or four inches. So he would poke the foam and it would hit the metal and it would just move over and do it again.

[laughter]

And then just move over again.

[laughter]

There's 70…70 holes…

Alexa

Oh my gosh. [laughter]

Herb Baker

in the external…They tried to repair it on the launch pad and they couldn't. So they had to roll the entire stack back into the VAB to repair those holes that the woodpecker had punched into the external tank foam. And of course, then when they rolled it back out, it was there for, I don't know, a week or so before they were ready to launch it. And so they had to make sure that it didn't happen again, right? 

And so they put up owls, are natural enemies of woodpeckers. They put big three-foot-high owls around the launch pad and they played screeching owl noises on the speakers. And even then, there were people kind of hanging around the launch pad looking to make sure the woodpecker didn't come back. But over the weekend, there was not as many people there. And so they had some volunteers come in to be there on the weekend. And after they were done, they gave them all t-shirts that said “Pecker Patrol.”

[laughter] 

Herb Baker

Every time I tell that story, the person says, “Can I get one of those shirts somewhere?”  I say, “I don't know. I've never actually seen one in person.” So that's another thing that has come up  from people reading my books.

Yeah. Oh, well, and you had asked me, you wanted me to tell you, it's not in my book, but I mentioned I have a lot of involvement with the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. And I've been a mentor for… this is sixth year, I think… but I was volunteering for them even before that. In fact, I, moderated a Skylab panel for them at one of their events a few years ago because there was no one else… I guess they hadn't picked a moderator and they knew that I knew a lot about Skylab so Jack Lousma and Vance Brand and Rusty Schweickart, they asked me to moderate the panel and that was one of the most fun things I've ever done. But anyway they just announced a new class of scholars and my mentee was in Houston here as part of the new class. And so there was a four day event at the fancy hotel in Houston and all of the scholars got up and took turns and spoke about the research they were doing. It just blows my mind. I mean, I didn't even understand half of what they were saying, you know, because it's very STEM kind of stuff.

One of the nights they had a big dinner afterwards, and it was just… Actually, I got lucky that I was even invited because I happened to get to know the new president and CEO.

So, I showed up. They gave me my mentor badge. And one of the young ladies who I've been working with for like eight or nine years there… I didn't even ask, she just dragged me over to the new president and CEO and introduced me. And so we're chatting. And she said,
“Well, are you staying for dinner tonight?” And I said, “Well, no, I wasn't planning to.” And she said, “Well, but you should.” She said, “In fact, you're you're going to be my guest and you're going to sit at my table…And by the way, do you know do you know “Scooter” Altman, Scott Altman?” And I said, “Well, yeah.” And she said, “Well, he interviewed me for this job, but it was remote and I never got to meet him and I'm not sure what he looks like. So if you… when you see him, would you introduce me?” So I did.

And so then we had a nice dinner. And anyway, it was Scott Altman's 66th birthday that very day. And so we sang happy birthday to him. And it was during that time that somebody pointed out, because I had forgotten this, talking about the Tom Cruise movie, “Top Gun.” And they said, “You know, in that movie, when the movie’s showing Tom Cruise flying this plane and they're buzzing the tower and flying upside down.” They said, “It was this guy that was actually flying that plane!”

Like, wow. [laughter] Yeah, I think I'd heard that a long time ago, but I completely forgot. And of course, wow, yeah, that was, you know, really, really cool because at one point, in fact, he shot the bird at the Russian in the MiG jet.  And so later I heard Scott say, “Yep, that was my finger.

[laughter]

….You see that finger in the movie? That's my finger.”

[laughter]

Alexa

He has screen time! 

[laughter] 

Herb Baker

Yeah, well, that's right. That's the full extent of it. Yeah.

Emily

That's truly so, so cool.

Herb Baker

yeah. yeah

Emily

….And it ties into my next question. You talk about this in your book as well, but I know from our friendship over the past couple years, you also have a wonderful connection to Skylab, if you'd be willing to tell us about it.

Herb Baker

Mm! Yes. So this is 1973.  And so, you know, 50, 52 years ago. Many people again weren't even born. And even some who were don't remember it. But there was a major problem when it launched. And Skylab was like a mini space station. And the plan was to launch it and the next day, launch the first crew of three astronauts to start living in it for 30 days.

There were going to be crews of 28 days, 56 days, and 84 days. Anyway, there was a problem and on the launch, some cables came loose. And all the shaking and and vibrations and such caused the micrometeoroid heat shield to be ripped off.

And there were two solar arrays that were going to provide almost all of the power that got stuck in with the cables. In fact, one of them was ripped off, but the other one was just… didn't deploy. It was still there, but it was stuck.

So Skylab gets into space. And it's… without the heat shield, It's 125 degrees inside and there's almost no power. And I think, “Oh, okay, well, we got a major problem here and we need to figure out how to fix it pretty quickly.” Because they were afraid that the pre-positioned food was going to spoil and the wiring might start melting and off-gassing from the materials inside. And there was no space shuttle to fly another big chunk of heat shield up like the one that was ripped off.

And so they had to come up and actually it was the father of one of my high school friends who came up with this idea. And they called it a parasol. They decided to replace the heat shield with a piece of special fabric. It's 22 feet by 24 feet. It's made out of aluminized mylar and nylon ripstop, whatever that is. But it was very thin, very lightweight, reflective material.

And again, they called it a parasol, so it was made kind of like an umbrella. They were able to fold it up so that it could be flown into space and pushed through a scientific airlock. And then once it was outside, unfurl it and pull it back down to the surface. And it worked! It reduced the heat to like 80 something degrees. 

Anyway, my family's connection to that is my mother was the seamstress that sewed that parasol! And so there's a kind of famous NASA photo of her. I mean, I've seen it! I didn't even know about it til somebody said, “hey, I just saw a photo of your mother in a Smithsonian advertisement.

And she was on The History Channel, a short video of her. And I've seen other… there was  a sewing club or something like that who posted a photo. And so I'm hearing from these people, you know, randomly, “Yeah, I saw that photo of your mother!”  You can imagine how proud I am of her for doing that. And so, and in fact, there's a documentary, “Searching for Skylab,” that, gosh, it's, six, seven, eight years old now. And my mother had passed away in 2007. And so the producer, director of the movie asked me if I would be in the movie to tell my mom's story. And of course I said yes. I really enjoyed that. 

And oh, so one other thing! This was only…oh it's been three, four, five years ago now. Nicole Stott was doing an audio version. They called it “Hey Sister, Sew Sisters.” It was a story about her talking about and interviewing seamstresses from the Apollo program and the shuttle program. And one of my friends who was involved said, “Well, hey, I know the guy whose mother did that parasol for Skylab.”

And so she decided to interview me, too. I already knew her at the time. So she, we arranged that. And so it was over the phone, but yeah, Nicole Stott interviewed me to have me tell the story about my mom sewing the Skylab parasol. And so that was quite an experience for me too.

Emily

That's truly so…

Alexa [at the same time]

That's so cool.

[laughter]

Emily

Yep! I was going to say the same.

But it's also… it's so symmetrical in a way of how you started in a press function reporting on NASA and then later you're getting interviewed by an astronaut yourself…

Herb Baker

[laughs] Yeah! Yeah, right. 

Yeah, that that hasn't escaped me either. Like I said, I will fanboy about astronauts til forever. I've probably known and met and worked with 100 of them, and it never gets old. Yeah. 

Alexa

You have so many amazing stories to share and that you've also documented in this memoir so far. So I highly recommend listeners, please go read it and check it out. There's also a lot of really cool pictures, like you mentioned, a lot of really great documentation in there.

Herb Baker

Mm.

Alexa

Was there anything in particular that motivated you to start collecting all of these things? Because this is your lived experience, for the entirety of your career, to actually document it and share it, not just with your family, but with practically the whole world.

Herb Baker

That's a good question because like I said before, even when I was 17 and working for ABC, making trips to the Public Affairs Office to pick up the press kits and flight plans and mission commentaries and such. It didn't take a genius to figure out that this is kind of important stuff. [laughs] So I think I'll take a copy for myself, too. I might wanna look back on this sometime 10, 20 years from now, let alone 56 years from now.

And so I think from that time on, and again, all through my professional career at NASA, if there was a report or a book or a pamphlet or a photo or something like that, I thought, “you know, I'm going to save this.” Or sometimes it's it's a digital file, right? I never did that thinking I was going to write a book about it someday. Sometimes people ask me, “Well, what prompted you to write the book?”  And in fact, I remember one particular person – and this is 10 or 12 years ago. I mean, I was still working– I'd started on social media in 2009. So that's what, that's now, wow, that's been 16 years. [laughs]

And so even for an old guy, I'm all over social media. I mean, LinkedIn and Twitter and Threads and Bluesky and Instagram and you know, I do that because I love to post photos. It's 99.9% of what I post is about NASA and people just love it. And yeah, 10 or 12 years ago, there was a woman, it was a social media post, and she said, “You know, you need to write a book.” 

And of course my first thought was, “Oh, yeah, right. What do I know about writing a book? And second all, who the heck would read it anyway?”

But as time went on, lots of people started saying that. And, you know, [I] retired and started having more free time. And I've never been afraid to try anything, you know [laugh]. And in fact, I think part of it was… so I was 72 when it was published. And I think part of it was I want to show people that you can still be 70 something years old and do cool things. 

So anyway, yeah, that's kind of how it all got started. But I didn't write it because I had all of this stuff. It was just that made it easier. But that's not why I did it in the first place.

Oh, and so one last thing! Somebody said something about the photos. So I've gotten like a bunch of reviews on Amazon. There's one thing… the most common comment is that, “Wow, the awesome photos.” There's over 100 photos in the book. And I'm kind of proud of that because I self-published.

I had a discussion with a publisher who had published two other books about NASA. And they made me an offer, but I really wasn't happy with it. And about that time, I started realizing, “Wait a minute, this is print on demand, and I can do all this myself.” And again, I just thought “I don't know how to do it, but I'm going to figure it out, teach myself.”  And so I did. I thought, “Well, if I self-publish it, I can put any picture I want in and I can put it wherever I want to put it and I can make it big or small or whatever.” And so that's what I did [laughs] and people seem to like that.

Alexa

Yeah, for sure. You have a lot more creative freedom…

Herb Baker

Yes…

Alexa

….over how you want to present something, especially it’s…

Herb Baker

Absolutely! 

Alexa

…it's so much to present.

Herb Baker

…I even did that with a lot of my writing. I don't really feel like I have a style yet. 

But as I was writing it, I thought, "You know I’m not going to try to follow ’this is the way I should write this.”’ I felt like if I want to be snarky, I'm going to be snarky.

[laughter]

Herb Baker

And I don't have to worry about an editor telling, “No, no, you know, you really shouldn't say it like that” as that's the way I want to say it. I'm going to say it that way.

Alexa

Mhm, it's your book.

Herb Baker

Yeah, that's right.

Emily

I loved it when I was reading, so…

[laughter]

…Especially because it's not at all surprising to me that people for the past 10 years or so have been recommending that you write a book because there's so many books about space and so many of them are really, really good.

Herb

Yeah.

Emily

Given the breadth of your career, it's just genuinely so cool about how many events at NASA you can speak to and just the community at large which I think is not something we get in a lot of books about space.

Herb

Yeah. I did have a different perspective than a lot of people did. So, I think in part that was what convinced me to write it. I thought, “Okay, well, there are a lot of books out there and a lot of them written by astronauts, but they weren't sitting and watching it from the same point of view that I was.”

Alexa

Oh, that's very true. Is there anything that you can share about what you may be working on right now or lately?

Herb Baker

Oh, well, [laughs] you know, it's funny because I spent so much time and learned so much actually about proofreading and editing and publishing. And it was quite an experience. And I kind of felt like after I did it that I learned so much about publishing a book that it feels kind of wasted if I don't write another one. 

So I have actually started thinking about what I would write about next. And actually one idea was to write about astronaut candidate interviews because I've known and have heard a lot many times even from the current astronauts and what they went through. But also I've had several friends who have applied to be an astronaut and have been…at least been through the interview process. In fact, I don't know if it's public knowledge yet, but I just a couple of days ago got my invitation to the announcement of the Group 24 astronaut candidate class that's coming up September 22nd at JSC, by invitation only.

And because I'm one of the officers on the NASA alumni league, they gave us five seats. And actually, I'm in the second row. They even assigned seats in the auditorium. So anyway, I'm looking forward to it.

And of course, those who were selected have to keep it secret. So I have no idea and neither does most of the rest of the world, unless you're a family member of one of those that was selected, who's going to be in that group.

But yeah, I have several friends who have expressed a desire. And in fact, I know one, unfortunately, told me that she actually made it to the interviews, but was not selected.

But yeah, really looking forward. 

Alexa

I feel like it would be very interesting to read about something that we may not get as much exposure on like the whole astronaut candidate interview process, because a lot of it is very personal, I think, for each individual person…

Herb Baker

Yeah.

Alexa

….But I'm sure there's nuggets of wisdom to be gleaned from that. That's relatable to the everyday world, like the non-astronaut world as well.

Herb Baker

Yeah, well, and one other thing I have going for me: [laughs] the guy who kind of led that whole activity for 15 or 20 years is in the NASA Alumni League.

I just saw him at our last event. And so I haven't even asked him yet about it, but I suspect he might be willing to have an interview with me to come up with a few things. So anyway, I'm thinking about that. 

But oh my gosh, I'm just so busy with other things, too. I've done... I think eight book signings now and hoping to do a few more. I still speak at Space Center Houston to students there about once a month. I’m doing lots of things with the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, of course. 

And the NASA Alumni League is keeping me busy. JSC treats us so well. It's just amazing. Again, you know, we get these invitations to things that unless you're an employee, you have no chance of getting into. They really appreciate us as mentors, too. The summer intern class ended and they invited five or six of us out to the Center to do a panel, to have a chat with the interns as they were leaving.

And then they invited us back the following week to meet with the new fall interns to have a chat with them to kind of ask questions and give them an idea of what it's like to work for NASA and that kind of thing. And so the Alumni League keeps me really busy, too.

Emily

Speaking of when you were meeting with the interns, one of the questions that we had for you was, especially given just the incredible breadth and depth of your career, do you have any advice for people looking to get into the space industry?

Herb Baker

So, I do get asked that often, too. And maybe it's a simple answer, but my advice is go for it.

Don't be afraid to fail. In fact, one of my favorite new sayings is “once you become fearless, life becomes limitless.” It makes me think back… because that's what a lot of people have said, “Well, gosh, what chance do I have of working at NASA?” In fact, if you read my introduction in my book, I wrote about one of my favorite stories is Charlie Bolden. And he was at test pilot school and Ron McNair, who was actually killed in the Challenger accident, was an astronaut at the time, and he went to visit Charlie. And they were about to do an announcement for a new astronaut class. And Ron asked Charlie, “Hey, are you going to apply?” And Charlie said, “No, they'll never pick me.”

And Ron said, “That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.” [He] says, “How the hell do you know if you don't even try?” And so Ron convinced Charlie to apply. And not only did they select him, he became the administrator of NASA. So there, try to top that story. 

[laughs]

Herb Baker

And then even for me, even though I grew up here, it wasn't like NASA was totally foreign to me. I mean, I still think back. So I'm fresh out of college. It's 1975. And they offer me a job and it's kind of like, “Well, wait a minute, I don't know anything. You guys just within the last five years or six years sent 12 men to the Moon. You sent three crews of astronauts to spend months on Skylab. You met up with the Russians in space and Apollo Soyuz, and now you're designing and building the new Space Shuttle, and you want me? Yeah, you want me? You're gonna let me be part of that? Holy crap.”

[laughter]

So it's kind of imposter syndrome thing. So if there's anybody out there, that's what really what I'm trying to get at is: don't even think for a second that you can't do it. Even if you can't, you have to try anyway. I love to tell that Charlie Bolden, Ron McNair story. It's true. You never know unless you try. And just don’t…don't let the fear stop you from at least trying.

Alexa

I love that. Don't be the one to be limiting yourself.

Herb Baker

Yeah. It's even funny because Gene Kranz is known for “Failure is not an option” and of course you may know the Apollo 13 movie. He never said that, actually. That was just a line inserted into the script for his character to say, but of course he took it on. And now he signs things that way, his first book was titled Failure Is Not an Option. But I also like to say, I think I even put this in my book, too, that, “OK, that's fine if you're trying to save the lives of three astronauts trying to come home from a disaster in space. But if you're not trying to do that, then failure is a requirement.” 

I mean, the old line about “if you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.” I'm a firm believer in that.

Emily

So you and I met at 2019 at a NASA Social. Our NASA social group…we have these Zoom meetings and we've all stayed in touch from that. And I remember mentioning in one of our NASA Zoom meetings that during the pandemic, I had applied for this PhD program and I'd had to apply for this scholarship and I had to write about inspirational figures.

And I had written about how the NASA astronaut Clayton Anderson…

Herb Baker

Yeah! 

Emily

…had applied multiple times to be an astronaut.

Herb Baker

Fifteen times! Yes.

Emily

And I will never forget that you'd mentioned. “Oh yeah, like I know him!” And you were so kind.

[Herb laughs]

Emily

And then the following time we all had a check-in, I just remember when you had asked me about how it went I was like, “Well, unfortunately, they didn't take me that time.”

And then in the mail, you had talked to Clayton and you had sent me an autographed copy of his book… 

Herb Baker

Yeah.

Emily

…of just a reminder never to give up. And that is bar none, one of the just kindest and most inspiring gifts I've ever received.

Herb Baker

Yeah, I remember that, yeah. 

Alexa

That's so wholesome. You do a lot of mentorship in the community in addition to just keeping in touch with other people in the industry, building friendships like you and Emily have started over the years. For folks that are interested in the space industry or maybe just in general and are looking for guidance and looking for a mentor specifically, do you have any advice for people like that on how to find a mentor in the first place?

Herb Baker

You know, that's a good question, too, that I've actually given some thought to because I've  been mentoring for 20 years. 

I mean, NASA has had, it's kind of gone off and on, and now it's off again. Big surprise. So obviously once I retired, I could not be part of the NASA formal mentoring program again. But I think that's about the time I started mentoring astronaut scholars for the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation. And I've also done a few others. The Alumni League has agreements with the University of Houston Clear Lake and Texas A&M University where we mentor some of their students. And I did that at least once for an A&M student.

Anyway, so I've done a lot of mentoring. I've never actually had a formal mentor myself. But that's kind of my point really, is that I, in my experience (my own personal experience), I have found that you don't really have to have or wait for a formal mentoring program to get assigned a mentor. You can just find someone who's more experienced than you, who's available, who you think that they want to see you succeed. And just ask questions and show them your curiosity. And you don't even have to say, “Hey, would you be my mentor?”  

You know, if you just get to know them and hang around with them and you can kind of let them become the mentor without them even knowing about it. In fact, I have another story that is an example for me. And mentors can change your life. 

All it takes is one person, one time to suggest, “Oh, hey, here's a job. I know who would be perfect for this.” So my story is I started working at JSC, and there was a guy in the Acquisition Office who was about 10 years older than me. And we kind of became friends and went to lunch together often. And we never even said the word “mentor” to each other. But I kind of hung out with him and he knew more than I did. And so if I had a question, I would just ask him, “What do you think about this?” Or “Can you help me with this?” And that kind of thing. And so fast forward, let's see… 1985. So well, about 10 years.

And he'd been sent to NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC for a special one-year assignment. And his year was up and he was due to come back home and Headquarters asked him, “Hey, do you know anyone back at JSU who would be a good person to take your place?”

And he said, “Yeah, I do actually! Herb Baker.” And so I had to get approval of the Center Director to let me go up and spend a year at NASA Headquarters. It's funny because I ended up spending nine years there later with the Fred Haise thing, but this was the first time I'd ever done anything like that at another center.

And one interesting piece about all of this is that I had always taken the position that I would never get involved romantically with anyone that I worked with, because that's just not a good idea, I think. But [laughs] it turns out that (just pure coincidence) that the same day that I started, a young woman who started the same day working in the same Program Office in the same building on the same floor on the same side of the hall also was there. And I couldn't help but run into her. So it took me about three months to ask her out. 

But of course I'm thinking, well, I'm going back home in nine months, so I don't need to worry about spending the next 10 years, you know, with somebody pissed off at me kind of thing. 

So we became involved. And anyway, we just had our 38th anniversary a couple of months ago!  And so I never would have even known she was alive if it hadn't been for my friend suggesting that I go be the person to replace him at NASA Headquarters. Just pure luck and coincidence, because he was my “mentor” without even knowing it kind of thing. 

And so again, yeah, that's my advice is just find somebody that you like and you think likes you and knows maybe more than you do and is willing to help. And just latch on to them and don't even tell them…

[laughter]

Herb Baker

…you're treating them like your mentor. That worked for me. Because again, I've never had an official mentor in my entire career. But I've had several people do really nice things for me because I got to know them and they trusted me and I trusted them and yeah, changed my life.

Alexa

Yeah, that makes sense that for some people, the more formalized approach might work. But for a lot of people, like a more informal, personable experience instead of being explicitly mentor/mentee also might work a lot better.

Herb Baker

And the other thing…It's kind of unfortunate. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining about it, but these structured formal programs, they have like a time period. They end… It's generally 12 months.

And that doesn't mean… In fact, I have a couple of my astronaut scholars that I've mentored that we connected on social media. And so we're still friends and chat every once in a while, but still every time they were going to school in a different state. And so, most of the meetings were virtual, but, again, the kind of thing I was describing is somebody that you work with or you live nearby and you're going to see often. And it's not going to just either officially or unofficially end in 12 months.

Alexa

On the flip side of that, I guess, do you have any insight or advice on how to be a good mentor as well? When you were talking earlier and sharing your story, you know it sounds like your quote unquote mentor, really friend in that case, was thinking of you and really being supportive of you in a way that came across really genuinely.

Herb Baker

Well, yes, so I guess I would say, and this may seem obvious: try to be a good listener, an active listener.  You want them to understand (hopefully you do) that you really care and you want to help them and you want to understand what they may be going through, or what they need help with. 

It'd be very easy to just tell them all your stories and not even half listen to what they have to say. So, and that's the other thing, let them talk and let them tell you what they want to tell you. And they need to trust you. That works a lot better if you're listening and letting them talk rather than you just telling them a bunch of stories. 

And if you do tell them a story, try to make it have a point or a real life story, not just instructions, so to speak, because there are lots of stories that you can tell them that really might help them.

And even for me, because I was a little hesitant at first, to be honest. I mean, again, I got to work with scientists and engineers and astronauts for 40 something years. And, I think by osmosis, I picked up a few things, but I was a business guy and here I am mentoring students and working on advanced degrees in astrobiotics and chemistry and stuff. And I can't help them with that, but I can help them with management and leadership and communication and networking and things like that.

One thing I’ve actually…I've become very good at editing and writing [laughs]. And so it turns out that a lot of the scholars I work with —almost all of them, they're juniors and seniors in college. I think in every case, they all were applying for grad school. And so just about every one of them, I told them, “Hey, if you want me to review your application…”

So they sent me their grad school application and any scholarship applications and things like that. There's all kinds of things a mentor can do. It doesn't have to be how to solve a chemistry problem for somebody who's working on PhD in chemistry.

Emily

That's a really, really good point. There's multiple ways you can help someone grow or that someone might need help.

Herb Baker

Yeah, and so that's… Again, you have a question or problem on some research you're doing? Sorry, [laughter] I would love to try, but that's not going to be good. [laughter]

Emily

This has been an absolute blast but one final question for you: where can people find you online and where can people find your book (but I will say that we will be putting the link to your website in our show notes). 

Herb Baker

Well, first of all, I was going to say I do have a website: Herb Baker, just H-E-R-B-B-A-K-E-R dot space. And actually, I didn't even know that whatever you call it, it's not a.com or.org whatever. It's .space. I didn't even know it existed until Fred Haise created his website. His website is fredhaise.space. Oh, I didn't know you could do that. So I did it, too.

Alexa

[laughs] 

Herb Baker

And actually the reason I created that was because you can order my book online at Amazon, and actually it's available at Barnes & Noble, too (at least online. It's not available in the stores, not yet anyway).

But I created my website because people wanted autographed copies. With the print on demand, you order the book and they print it and mail it to you. I couldn't insert myself.

So my website allows you to, if you want to an autographed copy, to order that. And in fact, it's actually a pretty good deal. I priced it at $18.48 because [laughs] if you add the local tax to it, it comes out to exactly $20. And so it's worked really well for like book signings, you know, because if you don't have a credit card you don't want to pay with the credit just, you know, $20 bill and we're done, no change or anything. So on my website for, I think it's $29.95. That covers the book, shipping, handling, tax, everything. So it's not too bad of a deal. 

But otherwise, if you Google me, you'll find out more than you ever wanted to know.

Emily & Alexa

[laughter]

Herb Baker

I mean, like I said, I've got like six different social media. And there's YouTube videos of other podcasts. You can find my interview with Nicole Stott. It’s still on the BBC website and you'll get like three pages of stuff. So again, you'll find out more than you ever wanted to know if you just Google me. So that's easier than trying to remember a specific website. And I'd be happy to, anybody who's interested in space or my book, I'd be happy to connect on any Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, BlueSky, Threads, whatever.

Emily

There are so many these days… .

Alexa

There really are.

[laughter]

Emily

Well, thank you so, so so much, Herb. It's been so great chatting with you on the podcast.

Alexa

This was so lovely.

Herb Baker

Oh, I love it. You can probably tell that there's not much I enjoy more than talking about NASA and all of the cool things I've got to do. So again, I appreciate you all inviting me. I've really enjoyed it. 

[outro:”Space” by Music_Unlimited]

Alexa

Thank you again for listening to this week’s episode of the Art Astra Podcast. If you liked what you heard, please consider rating us or leaving a review on your podcast platform of choice. This helps other listeners find our podcast. 

Emily

All our transcripts and show notes are available on our website at www.artastra.space. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, X, and Bluesky as artastrapodcast. As a reminder, NASA posts about NASA Social opportunities on their socials. If you miss them there, we will repost them when we see them to our socials as well. If any of our listeners are selected for NASA Social programming in the future, please let us know. We’d love to follow along! 

Emily & Alexa

See you next time! 

[outro: “Space” by Music_Unlimited]

Emily Olsen
Next

Episode 13: Design and Music in Space with Sands Fish