Caroline Bryant
Features Editor
FSC senior and NASA intern Rachel Howard said she wasn’t looking for an internship at the government’s space exploration agency.
But after completing two local internships, attending the Disney College Program and studying abroad at Regents University in London, the communications major asked herself: “What now?”
The answer was space. With a quick Google search, Howard found results for communications internships at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. and applied. She was accepted in May and started in June 2023.
At Marshall, Howard worked as an intern for the Planetary Missions Program Office, the sector of the space center in charge of management for non-human space missions.
Alongside mission managers, she helped update information on the office’s revamped website, planned outreach events and designed posts for their Facebook. Frequent events she organized and put on were STEM activities at local schools, public libraries and the Boys & Girls Club.
Outside of the office, she traveled to Denver, Colo. and the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla. for outreach events with her team. At the Kennedy Space Center, she got to see where NASA’s rockets launch, where astronauts eat their last meal before leaving Earth and where all “the fun stuff happens.”
One of her favorite moments was geeking out about the media booths used during the first mission to the moon.
“They were pointing out, ‘that’s where Walter Cronkite would’ve been’ and where he gave his word on everything,” she said. “That was super cool to me, from a media aspect, seeing all of that and seeing so much history behind all of it.”
She also attended the Solar System Exploration Convention at the University of Maryland. There, she met critically acclaimed author, Andrew Chaikin, who wrote “A Man on the Moon.”
While she admits she didn’t know Chaikin or understand space before her internship, working with people who are so passionate about what is beyond Earth has inspired her to pursue a career at NASA after she graduates. “I just loved all the people that I met because I was working with these mission managers that were such smart people who were always the most humble people ever,” Howard said. “They had every right to look [down] to me, but they made sure to make me feel very welcomed.”
Back at school, Howard has shifted to a part-time, remote version of her internship. She is currently planning the International Explore the Moon Night and promoting next fall’s Europa Clipper launch. According to NASA’s website, the mission will send a spacecraft to one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa.
U.S. poet Ada Limón wrote a poem that will be attached to the spacecraft on the launch. Anyone can digitally sign the poem through NASA’s website to have their name sent to Europa.
“With our Facebook messaging, all of the Sesame Street characters tweeted about it and signed their name… so that was super cute,” Howard said.
Though Howard is eager to know how she was hand-picked out of hundreds of applicants, she believes that her attitude – even if that meant less glamorous internships – played a role in her admission. She encourages underclassmen who want to be employed at NASA or any internship to have the same work ethic.
“The worst they can do is say no,” Howard said.
