A growing effort to attract more women and people of color to the space industry has shared some of its first results and a new occasion to mobilize: National Space Dayon May 3, when thousands of students will learn that not only can they do space things, but they should really start now.
Space workforce 2030 is a joint effort by the Space Foundation and Aerospace Corporation, which basically amounts to a promise that they (and their 29 business partners as of now) will transparently report the demographics of their workplaces, hiring and recruiting, and work together to identify ways to attract a more diverse crowd to the notoriously homogeneous space industry.
The effort also now has an executive director in Melanie Stricklan, formerly of Slingshot Space (and the Air Force), who now runs the organization full time.
In an announcement Monday, Stricklan and his colleagues from Aerospace, Space Foundation and Airbus US showed off some key statistics they hope to improve: not just endpoints like a diverse workforce, but an inclusive line of work that anyone with an interest in the industry can participate in. .
Stricklan and the others presented a united front that this is not a superficial DEI issue: the aerospace industry may face a jobs crisis in the coming years as one generation retires and another does not really take its place.
“When we think about our nation’s intellectual property and leadership globally, it’s synonymous with leadership in space,” Stricklan told me in an interview before the occasion. “We need the best workforce out there and are looking to build the best talent base in the world. This is not quota driven; “The best space workforce in the world comes from a perspective of meritocracy.”
In other words, they strongly support the view that diversity on the supply side of the employment funnel leads to a stronger workforce at the other end.
To that end, Space Workforce 2030 has started with the basics: collecting and understanding data to establish a baseline. They have leaned on Aerospace’s research analytics prowess to handle incoming data from dozens of companies participating in the initiative, standardizing it and producing results they can reliably compare year after year. This in itself is an achievement, it must be said: these are not companies known for their openness and transparency. But, as an Airbus representative noted, they see workforce collapse as a serious, long-term threat that needs serious, long-term solutions.
The initial numbers show modest increases and some worrying errors, which is about what would be expected from this organization’s first real year in action. From 2022 to 2023, the proportion of female technical staff increased from 18.5% to 19.4%, while the proportion of people of color in that category increased from 32.7% to 34.1%. Internship Applications increased by a factor of ten!
On the other hand, the number of women in actual industry internships remained stable, while the number of women moving from interns to staff decreased by a whopping 4.5%. You can read the rest of the highlighted statistics in the report itself..
So the question is: why? Were these small gains significant and were they the result of the efforts of these companies? What explains the drop in women in internships, if not the increase in applications?
There really is no solid answer, because the reality is that this data is only now beginning to be collected and investigated. A big part of the engagement is simply making these numbers available so everyone can be honest and collaborative about where improvements can be made. Only if multiple companies and organizations publicly share this data will the group be able to say: wait, this company has been steadily improving their internal conversions for a few years – what are they doing right? Hopefully this will provide other companies with useful information.
A big part of the challenge of getting people into this space is letting them know it’s even an option, and Stricklan and her colleagues firmly believe this includes the K-12 segment, not just college kids and job seekers. So they have organized a National Space Day curriculum with videos, teacher information, and tons of other materials aimed at showing kids of all ages and backgrounds that yes, they can build satellites, rockets, lunar landers, and maybe even go to space themselves.
It’s May 3rd and they’ve enlisted the help of former TechCrunch contributor Emily Calandrelli (who’s awesome) to create and promote content for the occasion. Stricklan told me that thousands of teachers have signed up and they expect to see a lot of participation next month.
Surprisingly, Congress even acted enough to propose a resolution in honor of National Space Day. Hopefully you can agree that this is not the kind of thing that partisan bickering should derail.
All Space Workforce 2030 leaders and partners emphasized that this is a long-term effort that is just beginning; hence the focus on children who won’t be eligible for internships for a decade or more. That also means they still have to pull a lot of levers to improve their results and add more data to the stack.
“One thing I would like to do is extend it to government organizations and nonprofit affiliates. “They have different touchpoints to reach those who just don’t understand that there could be a future for them in a STEM-related career.” Stricklan told me. He mentioned the Office of Management and Budget (which has tons of data), NOAA and EPA (tons of interesting work), and several others they are in talks with or looking to address.
It’s good to see a clear recognition that we could face a talent crisis in the space and adjacent industries, and a willingness to admit that there is a lot of work to do. You can learn more about the Space Workforce 2030 effort here.