Local educator says Apollo helped US engineering dominance

Apollo 11 moon landing, July 20, 1969 (NASA Photo)

Hix, a professor of education technologies at Motlow State Community College, is also an educational consultant for NASA, helping to try to show educators better ways to teach science and engineering. He will join other NASA employees on Monday at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center for a celebration of Apollo 11's "one giant step for mankind."

"I am most excited about being at that...." Hix said. "There will be a lot of people there that worked on the moon mission.

"I remember the landing just like it was just a few weeks ago. I was a little 12-year-old boy sitting on my den floor in my home in Flat Creek. The landing on the moon had an impact on me that has affected me, all the rest of my life." He said he has passed along his excitement about the space program to his students and to his son.

When Hix spoke to the Times-Gazette on Friday, he was on the road to a meeting of the Von Braun Astronomical Society in Huntsville.

There are still triumphs being achieved in space -- on Friday, Hix was excited that a new NASA satellite had photographed the Apollo landing sites.

Billy Hix and Terry Sue Fanning (at left) interview Jullian Dick, director of media services at the Kennedy Space Center, for a television program they taped at the center in 2006. In the background is the front of an Apollo capsule that has been used in several movies, including "Apollo 13" and "Armageddon." (File photo, submitted) [Click to enlarge]

"I thought it was most fascinating that today, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, they call it the LRO, released its very first pictures.

"It's the first satellite we've sent that has an extremely powerful telephoto lens."

The photos sent home by the LRO revealed the landing stages of the lunar modules, left behind at the end of each landing. At one site, the photography was so good that astronaut tracks in the moon dust were visible.

It brought back memories of the days when Hix devoured books and magazines about the space program.

Hix believes the space program was a powerful motivator which led young people to careers in science and engineering.

"Without a doubt," he said, "that was an inspirational time for young men going into engineering."

The lessening of interest in the space program over the years has taken away some of that motivation, and Hix said that NASA, and the Defense Department, are worried.

At the time of the Apollo 11 program, said Hix, the average age of the personnel seated at consoles in Mission Control was 28. Today, it's 52. When Hix works with industries in Huntsville, he said he sees engineers who tend to be in their 40s and 50s.

Hix stressed the importance of science and engineering to everything from commerce to national security.

"The life that we get to live today is based on our leadership in those areas," he said.

But that leadership may be at risk. Hix said that in 2007, the U.S. graduated 64,000 engineers \-- while China graduated nearly 10 times that many.

"The Department of Defense is more worried than NASA," said Hix, because development of high-tech armaments can't be outsourced.

Hix, in his work as a NASA consultant, tries to help teachers find new ways of motivating students to study science and engineering.

Hix also presents brief video computer tips as "The Dell Tip Guy" on Nashville Public Television (Channel 8).