LAKEWOOD, Ohio — If you do a good job at work, perhaps there’s a free trip to see and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
That’s exactly what Lakewood resident Ben Van Lear is doing this week.
However, instead of traveling to a conference or taking a business trip, the 20-year NASA veteran was recently named a Space Flight Awareness Award winner.
That means, he’ll be flying to Cape Kennedy, Fla. to watch in person the un-crewed Artemis I test flight launch scheduled for Monday at the Kennedy Space Center.
“I received a Space Flight Awareness Award for my many years of working on the Artemis I spacecraft,” said Van Lear, who is bringing along his family to Florida to witness the launch.
“It has our Orion spacecraft, which will go around the moon, as well as the SLS (Space Launch System) rocket. We had our exploration flight test on a Delta IV Heavy rocket back on the ground in 2014 but this is our first full-up test before launching humans on the next mission.”
Van Lear is currently the Orion Production Operations European Service Module Lead at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland.
Working with the European Space Agency partner, the Cincinnati native’s role in the Artemis project is to plan and execute the integration and testing of the service module with the rest of the Orion spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center.
“A part of our Orion spacecraft — the service module — is provided by the European Space Agency,” Van Lear said. “It has all of the power, propulsion and life-support systems. It’s really the powerhouse for the Orion spacecraft.”
For comparison, the Orion space capsule, which sits on top of a rocket, is light years ahead of the Apollo capsule that took man to the moon in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.
“The Orion spacecraft is like the Apollo on steroids,” Van Lear said. “It fits four astronauts so it’s one additional crew member but it’s a much larger and more capable spacecraft.
“That extra person takes a lot of extra oxygen, resources and space in the capsule. Then just the spacecraft as a whole is a lot more capable for longer missions, for much more challenging orbits and trajectories around the moon.”
That’s related to the Artemis II program’s 40-day mission, currently planned for May of 2024, which includes lunar orbit. A year later the first woman and first person of color are expected to land on the moon.
The notion that NASA is currently entering another golden age of space flight and exploration isn’t lost on Van Lear who thinks about inspiring future generations of engineers and astronauts.
“If we put our minds to it, put in the engineering effort, the expertise and the education, we can work together on these kinds of incredible and massive engineering projects,” Van Lear said.
“We can do things that really are inspiring — going to the moon and then onto Mars as well. That’s really possible.”
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