The “everyday astronaut” turned out to be not the everyday kind of person.
The talented Tim Dodd is the central spark plug behind the Internet-streamed show “Everyday Astronaut,” dedicated to “bringing space to Earth for everyday people.”
Born in 1985, Dodd and his team provide video updates on space and captivating interviews with prominent rocketeers, including Elon Musk and the SpaceX Starship program. Indeed, Dodd and Musk have proven to be a powerful pair when it comes to showing what’s going on behind the scenes with Starship’s development.
Considered a late bloomer in recognizing his space and rocket boosterism, Dodd transitioned from a professional photographer career to starting Everyday Astronaut as an art project on Instagram in 2014. But his love for spaceships soon reached escape velocity, propelling him into the orbit of passion.
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In 2017, Dodd posted to YouTube a video designed to engage and educate the public about space flight. The Everyday Astronaut production team grew and flourished further in 2019 by developing the website and churning out top videos from the likes of former NASA chief, Jim Bridenstine, and Rocket Lab’s Peter Beck.
For Dodd, the future looks bright — especially thanks to the light of SpaceX Starships and the glow of launchings. He was selected to participate in a lunar space flight as part of the Dearmoon Project crew, one of eight selected to travel into the near future on a starship.
SPACE.com caught up with Dodd in an exclusive interview to discuss his daily astronaut status, thoughts on space entrepreneurs, and how he’s preparing himself for his civilian journey to the Moon and back.
Tim Dodd, also known as Everyday Astronaut, is an American science communicator, YouTube content creator, photographer, and musician. In 2022, Dodd is selected as a crew member for PreMoon, the first civilian mission to the Moon.
SPACE.com: It seems your passion for space has evolved rapidly. How was your show?
Dodd: I am a college dropout and have been a professional photographer for about 8 years or so. I’ve always loved mechanical things and enjoyed working on cars and motorcycles growing up. My father was an engineer. So I always got my hands dirty, building and fixing things. I was really interested in turbochargers and performance cars that had turbochargers. I love things that go fast… and nothing’s faster than a rocket. This is the ultimate version of horsepower and power. This was a photo assignment to shoot SpaceX CRS-3 [Commercial Resupply Service mission] It got me up close and personal with the hardware. It hit me in the face. I was inspired and excited.
Space.com: Is there a message in your show that you want viewers to appreciate?
Dodd: I think when people are educated about things, when they get answers to their questions, they get excited about things. And only then their curiosity is awakened. That little light bulb goes on in their head.
I’m still learning as fast as I can every day. I still feel that I have a million things to learn.
Space.com: How technical can you be for your audience?
Dodd: What I’ve found is that it’s okay to be really technical with people. My audience likes that. They love when I dive in deep. Appreciating a few small details can lead to even bigger, more technical questions. The trick is that you have to make a story out of it.
SPACE.com: You very much liked your one-on-one time with Elon Musk.
Dodd: I think he really likes to be asked technical questions. he is a Very Technical man and has an incredible breadth of knowledge. He knows an insane amount about a lot of things. So I think he appreciated someone else who could keep up with him and not just ask the same 10 questions.
SPACE.com: You’ve had the opportunity to talk to leading space entrepreneurs. What is your opinion about them? Perhaps the public still hasn’t caught on to private space clusters?
Dodd: There is a disconnect in the general public regarding the ‘why’ of space. They wonder why billionaires are wasting their money with imaginary space stuff? They do not understand that our daily life revolves around these space assets and our lives are improved. And the cheaper we can get things up into space, and eventually more and more things down from space, the quality of life for the average person on Earth will continue to grow. There’s a disconnect between the point it’s cheaper, more regular, more readily available… and what that means for the average person here on Earth, the lifestyle it can lead to.
SPACE.com: When you talk to space entrepreneurs, do you feel any common threads between them and how they run their companies?
Dodd: Most of the people I talk to are complete rocket nerds. They know their vehicles inside and out. He has a level of depth in the operations of these companies. They are shaking hands with engineers and engineering. They’re on the factory floor every day looking at hardware. They are not just a face or some people manager. They have to do all this. You have to be at that level. This can be the difference between those who fail and those who succeed. They understand their system as a whole.
SPACE.com: Of course using space has consequences, whether it’s space debris or megaconstellations troubling the astronomical community. What is your take on these issues?
Dodd: It’s a Wild Wild West version of outer space at this point. Space debris is definitely something we have to consider. We’re starting to get some of that legislation, to make sure that there are protocols on the life span of satellites. This is a real, genuine concern. If we don’t start handling things like every single satellite, with end-of-service deorbit planning and controlled avoidance maneuver, we’re setting ourselves up for a disaster.
SPACE.com: Then there are the megaconstellations that are blinding ground astronomers.
Dodd: It’s one of those weird things. I think the solution to better astronomy in the future is all space-based assets. If we could start launching things at 10th or 100th the price today, the space telescopes we could have would make the James Webb Space Telescope look like a joke. We deal with our bad environment much better than we do today.
But unfortunately there are decades of this peculiar overlap space property interferes with astronomy. But it will come back when space astronomy is clearly superior to ground-based astronomy. So it’s an overall win.
SPACE.com: Where do you see the astronauts everyday this year?
Dodd: To be honest, I got tired of doing livestreaming on-site. I’m such a perfectionist. I want things to be of good enough quality that it justifies my being there. I love making deep-dive videos and I find even more fun topics that are less-topical, like why don’t rocket engines melt down? How do you power a rocket engine? And how do you start a rocket engine? By the way, starting the rocket engine is the most difficult task. Getting a rocket engine up and running is relatively easy. But it is very difficult to start!
Hopefully my viewers will crave more and dive into more niche and in-depth videos. My goal is to find people, to spark their interest, even people who didn’t know they were interested in or liked spacecraft.
Space.com: There are winners about NASA versus commercial space organizations, as the feasibility of the space agency’s Space Launch System contrasts with SpaceX’s capabilities. What is your opinion?
Dodd: First of all, I’m glad that the first SLS and Orion were a huge success. I think that’s an important backbone to ensure momentum. It’s a huge cost, but I still think it’s worth it and it’s currently the only proven thing capable of getting humans to the Moon. I guess it’s a weird development phase here… weird timing in the grand scheme of things. But I’m excited to see the transition to being able to switch to other systems. But in the meantime, we have SLS and the capability, so use it.
SPACE.com: Of course the big news is your selection for the Premoon flight on Starship. What happens now and are you ready for your liftoff?
Dodd: Seriously, I’m realizing I need to make sure I’m staying in shape. The past six months of chasing livestreams have meant eating a lot of fast food, sleeping poorly, and cram meals in five minutes’ time. I am focusing on this winter.
SPACE.com: How about training for flight?
Dodd: I don’t have an exact timeline on that yet. A lot of it depends on the starship. We are all anxiously waiting for the first orbital tests to happen. So at this point, we’re on standby, ready to dive into the training aspects as we go forward. Given the earlier civilian training for orbital missions, that’s about six months, so probably something like that. Orbital missions carry more risk, are much more involved, and have more missions. I think each of us should be familiar with the spacecraft, our mission, what to expect and the tasks at hand.
SPACE.com: And you’re taking a week-long trip to the moon too!
Dodd: We are about to be the first civilians to orbit the Moon and likely some of the first humans since the Apollo astronauts. I don’t know if we will be the first or not. there’s a good chance [NASA’s] Artemis 2 can beat us. But we are going to join the short list of people in the 21st century who will go to the moon and see the moon up close with their own eyes.
The Dearmoon Project is making sure we are a united team. They had over a lakh applicants and they narrowed it down to eight of us. I am working with people who are so talented. Something really special is about to happen. Our mission is, literally, to assimilate this flight and send it back home.
SPACE.com: But on an eight-person ship, I think you know a lot more about the way a starship is ticking. Wouldn’t it be discouraging on launch day?
Dodd: Obviously, the whole spectrum from failure to success is always on my mind. Clearly, it will take some convincing to become a reality and to maintain that confidence. So far, this is an iterated phase of the vehicle. I am confident that they will have the right solution to secure the vehicle for human space flight. But I’m also confident that they’re going to do a lot of certification and people have reassured me about why and how… how they’re going to keep us safe.
We haven’t signed up for deathbed here. We’ve signed up for civilian space flight. We are expecting it to be commercial and secure. I wouldn’t expect anything less.
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