As Dr. Sian “Leo” Proctor walked across the stage, she asked the crowd one thing: “Who wants to go to space?”
Not surprisingly, the majority of the audience, an eclectic mix of STEM majors, artists and military, raised their hands.
Proctor herself is an eclectic mix, a true modern-day Renaissance woman: she’s a civilian astronaut, artist, businesswoman, professor and even an amateur hockey player.
While most of the crowd knew her from her work in STEM, she immediately reminded the audience that it was her other interests that earned her a seat on Inspiration4, the first all-civilian spaceflight.
“I won the ‘Prosperity’ seat on Inspiration4, and I did that not as a geoscientist or explorer or an analog astronaut, which are all on my resume,” Proctor said. “I actually won this [seat] as a poet and an artist.”
She went on to talk about how combining interests and talents creates a more just and wholesome “space” for everyone.
“We are striving for that Star Trek generation, the idea of a just, equitable, diverse and inclusive space, or a JEDI space,” Proctor said.
Proctor then flipped to her life before becoming the first Black female to ever pilot a spacecraft. She discussed her dad’s influence on her career, saying that he pushed her to become a “life-long learner” and how his wall of NASA memorabilia from his time working at the Guam tracking station constantly inspired her.
Proctor even slipped in a few jokes, cheekily pointing out that she was born eight and a half months after the Apollo 11 mission, making her a “moon celebration baby.”
Despite the humorous tone throughout, Proctor didn’t shy away from heavy topics. In fact, she candidly discussed her thoughts after she was rejected from the final round of NASA astronaut interviews.
“Your heart gets crushed in that moment because you started to believe that [becoming an astronaut] was a possibility,” Proctor said. “That imposter syndrome voice comes out and starts saying to you, ‘I told you you weren't good enough. You need to make yourself better.’”
Instead of giving up, Proctor turned to art, creating poetry, postcards, watercolors and collages over the COVID-19 pandemic. That art would turn out to be fortuitous, as it was an original poem that cliched her seat in SpaceX’s viral Inspiration4 campaign.
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Dr. Sian Proctor shares pages from her books “Space2inspire: The Art of Inspiration” and “EarthLight: The Power of EarthLight and the Human Perspective”
Proctor also highlighted some photos and videos from her extensive six-month training process and eventual launch into space, where she spent three days. But even in orbit, Proctor remained an artist.
“SpaceX asked me what I wanted to do in space,” Proctor said. “I said I wanted to paint … It’s been done before!”
While in space, she found herself in awe of Earth’s natural beauty and fascinated with a phenomenon called “Earthlight,” the light Earth emits due to its high reflectivity. Now, almost four years after her stint in space, Proctor has launched her own clothing designs, written a book on Earthlight and released a coloring book featuring her art.
For many audience members, including Ben Jantad, a first-year computer science major, Proctor's lecture was both personally inspiring and just plain awe-inducing.
“I was speechless,” Jantad said. “The video of her [launching to space] made me cry a little bit.”
Proctor’s appeal was also found in her balance of the humanities. Eve Duggins, a first-year biology major, found that she could see herself in Proctor’s diverse interests.
“I thought her lecture was a really profound thing,” Duggins said. “I’ve wanted to work for NASA since I was little [and] I’m an artist too.”
After the lecture, Proctor headed to a reception where attendees could grab photos, browse her books or just have a chat about space.
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