By Kurtis Archer | 2026-03-13

NASA Solar System Ambassadors communicate the excitement of the US space agency's missions and discoveries to communities across the United States. Managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the volunteer network provides free educational outreach at schools, libraries and museums.

BlueShift sat down with NASA ambassador Marc Fusco, who is based in Raleigh, North Carolina, in February to discuss his work, the new moon race and the future of the space sector.

A self-described "space cadet since childhood," Fusco maintained his interest in space throughout his career as an award-winning teacher and Shakespeare scholar, and later as a management consultant and business owner.

Not content to simply watch the space program from the sidelines, he left his career to pursue a master's degree in Space Studies. He focuses on space history, commerce and policy – but his knowledge and love of all things space includes planetary science, orbital mechanics, astronomy and astrobiology.

Showing up to the interview in a baseball cap with a century-old US Army Air Corps insignia on the front, Fusco was a professional space nerd ready to talk.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

BlueShift: Was there a specific moment that pivoted your career toward space?

Fusco: I was 7 years old when Apollo 11 landed, and it remains one of my earliest and most vivid memories. I remember lying on the floor at 11 o'clock at night, eyes glued to the TV, after my mother woke me up with the promise that I would remember that moment for the rest of my life. She was right.

For a long time, I believed the only way into the space world was to be an astronaut. No one told me that NASA needed a small army of engineers and other personnel for every one pilot. Between my asthma and a failed attempt to sneak into the ROTC [Reserve Officers' Training Corps] during college, I assumed the door was closed to me. I spent years building a career as a Shakespeare scholar and then as a management consultant, but the calling never truly faded.

The turning point came in 2009. I was in Florida with my daughters, trying to catch the launch of STS-127 [a NASA Space Shuttle mission to the International Space Station]. We spent two weeks chasing that countdown, enduring five different scrubs. On the final attempt, standing by the Banana River with the VIPs and journalists, watching the clock stop at five seconds -- I realized I didn’t just want to be a spectator. I felt like I belonged there.

I drove home to Raleigh and, at 4 a.m., started searching for any way in. I was willing to drive a tour bus or work the snack bar just to be part of it. Then, I saw a banner ad for a degree in Space Studies. I fired off an email detailing my experience in calculus and my desire to move my career into space. At 9:05 a.m., I got a call from the department chair, who said there was absolutely a place for someone like me -- I just had to roll up my sleeves and get back into the math. I ended up closing my consulting firm to get a degree in Space Studies from the University of North Dakota.

BlueShift: Tell us more about your role as a NASA ambassador.

Fusco: When I began as a NASA Solar System Ambassador, they had 10 people in every state who were space experts who would just go and talk to schools, talk to rotary clubs. You basically do what astronauts do in Texas and Florida as part of their earthbound duties. Now, in Raleigh, I think we have about 15 people here. So the program's really growing. And some people are astronomers, observational astronomers, some are astrophysicists, most of them are engineers. I'm the guy who likes people on rockets, that's what my jam is. So I give a talk on commercial space in the previous year, kind of like a recap, and then one on human spaceflight. And I've been doing that for 13 or 14 years.

BlueShift: You’ve lived through the Shuttle era and the pivot to commercial space. How has the landscape changed?

Fusco: In the early days, information was highly compartmentalized. Today, the landscape has shifted entirely. With the NASA History Archives and technical communities like L2 on NASA Space Flight, the original specifications and foundational data for space information and exploration are at your fingertips.

If you look at the '60s, there were six or seven Mercury missions, I think 10 or 11 Gemini missions, and then the Apollo missions. Today SpaceX has almost equaled what we did in the entire decade. And they do it on their own. I think it's about $110 million for the whole launch, and we were paying the Russians [Soyuz] $78 million a seat. So the partnership that NASA has with SpaceX and some of the other commercial companies is freeing up budget so they can go back to doing the heavy lifting, do the exploration stuff, which is what the Space Launch System (SLS) and the Orion for the Artemis program is doing.

As for the downside, having 500 or 1,000 TV channels means there's no common culture anymore. There are so many things going on because of the internet. ...Here in Raleigh, we had our Astronomy Days space festival. And I was talking about the fact that, "Hey, today we were supposed to launch people back to the moon" and some people there didn't know. People who had come out to a space festival were unaware.

BlueShift: What is the most significant technological hurdle we've overcome since Apollo?

It's been 54 years since the last Apollo mission. Obviously, the rockets are safer. With the SLS, they think the projected failure rate is one in 10,000 launches, something along those lines, but the space shuttle was one in 88. ...The engine power on the actual capsule is now bigger. So now what we can do is, if you look at all the Apollo landing sites, they were all around the equator of the moon because that's where they could get to. Now we're going to be landing on the south pole, where the water is. So we can land pretty much anywhere on the moon.

They once had just enough power to get there and now we have, basically, power to burn. The other thing is computing power, right? Your phone has tens of thousands of times more computing power. I read the other day, the new Orion capsule has 20,000 times the computing power of the Apollo computer. Now, the Apollo computer was a pioneer. It's the first portable computer, right? They can fit in a meter-by-meter box. Before that, you hear the stories that the computer took up a gymnasium at a university.

Back then, software was a brand-new concept -- astronauts had to perform manual calculations to double-check "primitive" computers. Now, our systems are fully automated. We’ve moved away from the "seat-of-the-pants" flying of the 1960s, where every mission dodged a bullet that could have ended in disaster.

BlueShift: How has the rise of companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin changed NASA’s internal roadmap?

Fusco: NASA has transitioned from a hands-on operator to a sophisticated customer. We’ve moved away from "cost-plus" contracts to a milestone-based system. This has decimated the "cost-to-orbit" barrier. During the Shuttle era, it cost roughly $46,000 to put a single pound of cargo into space. With the reusable Falcon 9, that has dropped to just a few thousand dollars. Space is no longer the exclusive playground of superpowers -- it’s been democratized.

BlueShift: What is the biggest challenge for a community on the moon?

Fusco: Well the big, big issue is water, right? At nearly eight pounds per gallon, hauling it from Earth is too expensive. But we now know there are billions of gallons of ice at the lunar south pole. This is a game-changer. Through electrolysis, we can split H2O into hydrogen for rocket fuel and oxygen for breathing. Essentially, the lunar south pole is a cosmic convenience store.

The moon is our proving ground. If we can master "moisture farming" there, we can automate the machinery and send it ahead to Mars. By the time humans arrive on the Red Planet, the fuel and water will already be pre-staged by robots.

BlueShift: What are some of the most common misconceptions about moon exploration or the solar system at large that you have found people have?

Fusco: How hard it is. They think it's easy. They think since we did it in the ’60s, it would be easy now. Well, it's going to be just as hard now. Just the math and the precision that you need [to perform a lunar landing]. Now, it'll be done with computers, I would imagine, there won't be a whole lot of human control unless there's a total system failure. But that is really, really, really, really, hard. Just getting into orbit is the hardest thing that we do as a species. The speeds involved, you've got to go from zero to 17,500 miles an hour in eight minutes. And if one engine is underperforming, you're probably not going to make it. Though now you have excess rocket power, so the margins for error are greater. You can have a lot more go wrong and still get there.

The other thing is the difference between going to the moon and going anywhere else is astronomical. So there's a pretty good chance humans are never going to be able to explore anything beyond Mars. You're not going to be able to go to Venus because of the pressure and the heat. Certainly not Mercury. And then once you get past Mars and you go through the asteroid belt, they're all gas giants. So maybe we'll get to land on a moon of Jupiter, say Europa, where we think there might be life… Our lifespan being so short, the distances being so vast, travel beyond that may never happen. So all the science fiction stuff that we watch, Star Trek, Star Wars, all that, is probably never going to happen -- knowing and understanding physics the way we understand it.

BlueShift: How do you answer people who say we should spend the money we invest in space exploration fixing problems on Earth?

Fusco: Every dollar we spend on space is a direct investment in our survival here at home. We aren't sending cash into a vacuum, in fact studies suggest every dollar invested in NASA generates $5 for the economy. We are living in the house that NASA built -- from the technology that saves medical patients to the smartphone in your pocket.

Beyond economics, it’s planetary insurance. The dinosaurs didn't have a space program, and we know how that ended. By establishing colonies on the moon and Mars, we ensure the human species is no longer keeping all its eggs in one basket.

BlueShift: Any final advice for the next generation of explorers?

Fusco: If you want to go to Mars someday, double up on majors when you are in college. Crews will be small, so every seat is precious. To stand out, be a polymath -- become a doctor who is also a roboticist, or a geologist with an engineering specialty.

It doesn’t matter who your parents are or where you are from. All that matters is that you work hard and get well educated. Whether your passion is robotics, geology, or management, there is a place for you in space. You don’t have to be on top of the rocket to be part of the mission -- and I am living proof of that.