Guests - Dr. Charles Camarda, Tom Horne

Space Exploration Challenges and Education Reform: Insights from NASA Veteran and Arizona Education Leader

Mission Out of Control: A Former Astronaut's Perspective on NASA's Culture

As two NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams, prepare to return to Earth after being stranded in space for nine months, Dr. Charles Camarda provides critical insights into the challenges facing America's space program. The rescue mission, coordinated by NASA and SpaceX, comes after Boeing's Starliner spacecraft suffered technical malfunctions that left the astronauts aboard the International Space Station since June 2024.

"We're looking at this as probably a routine mission," Camarda explains. "The SpaceX Dragon capsule on the Falcon 9 Block 5 vehicle has been very successful, very reliable. It's flown and taken crew to the space station 10 times previously."

Camarda, who served as an active astronaut for approximately 10 years and flew on the first mission after the Columbia accident, recently authored "Mission Out of Control," which examines the cultural issues within NASA that contributed to past tragedies.

"What we learned after Columbia was that the real cause of the accident was culture," Camarda states. "It wasn't so much the technical issues. And what we also learned was that NASA was not able to fix that after the Challenger, after Columbia. So the culture is still broken."

At the core of NASA's problems, according to Camarda, is the loss of what he calls the "research culture" and technical edge that defined the agency during its NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) days and early Apollo missions. The agency shifted to a "production culture" focused on managing large, expensive space programs, becoming increasingly bureaucratic in the process.

"We became more bureaucratic, and the program managers had most of the power. The good engineers that were trying to voice their concerns were being beaten down," Camarda says. "Plus, we did not have the technical expertise that we used to have at these research centers."

The Loss of Psychological Safety and Technical Expertise

Camarda highlights psychological safety as a critical factor in NASA's cultural decline. Without an environment where people can raise issues, voice concerns, argue, and think critically, silence prevails—with potentially catastrophic consequences.

Drawing from his personal experience as director of engineering at Johnson Space Center following the Columbia disaster, Camarda shares a troubling example: "I still saw issues with foam coming off the vehicle, just the same foam that caused the Columbia accident. We had a near miss and almost got hit with a large piece of foam. The next mission after us almost got hit with a large piece of foam. When I was director of engineering, I stood up and said we shouldn't fly that next mission. I was reassigned."

Camarda later identified a problem with the wing leading edge that "people were hiding at NASA," forcing the agency to stand down and repair defective wing leading edge panels after eight missions had already flown with the issue.

"People wouldn't believe it," Camarda says. "I didn't want to have to trash NASA like that in my book because I stayed with NASA trying to help them fix the problem. But when I saw it was impossible, they weren't going to change, I finally resigned."

The Path Forward for NASA

Despite these challenges, Camarda remains hopeful about NASA's future. "I'm always positive. I always look at the hope," he says. "I think Jared Isaacman and Elon Musk would understand what I wrote in the second half of my book. I believe we could solve this problem. I believe we could change the culture."

Camarda's book outlines a plan for how NASA can reclaim its technical expertise and rebuild a culture of safety—though he acknowledges it will take time to train new experts. "The second half of the book talks about how we could use technology to basically monitor the behaviors that we're seeing on our teams," he explains.

As Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams prepare to return to Earth on March 16th, Camarda expresses confidence in the SpaceX-led rescue mission. "SpaceX has flown the Falcon 9 block 5 vehicle to space station with crew 10 times successfully without a hitch," he notes. "It's the only vehicle that has been flying U.S. astronauts from the United States to space since Space Shuttle."

Tackling Education Challenges: Arizona Superintendent Tom Horn's Reform Agenda

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horn addresses misconceptions about his administration of the Empowerment Scholarship Program (ESAs) and outlines his vision for improving education in the state. Responding to criticism from Attorney General Chris Mays, Horn defends his department's efforts to prevent fraud in the ESA program.

"To avoid fraud, I was the first superintendent to hire an auditor from the Auditor General, someone who spent 19 years in the Auditor General's Office, and an investigator to fight fraud," Horn explains. "And then we discovered fraud, carried over from her, the people that she had hired, and I fired. We sent it to her for prosecution, and she's so incompetent that one of the perpetrators was acquitted when he should have been convicted if he'd been properly prosecuted."

Charter School Accountability and Academic Success

Horn recently addressed the revocation of Primavera Online School's charter, explaining that the Charter School Board, which has separate jurisdiction from the Department of Education, took action after the school received three consecutive years of D or F grades.

"Your first priority for all public schools is academic success," Horn emphasizes. "It is important that charters and district schools alike are held accountable for the quality of education they provide."

Highlighting a successful initiative, Horn shares how his department established a laboratory in a school in a disadvantaged district to demonstrate that "poor kids can learn just as well as rich kids if they're properly taught." After sending department personnel to help teachers improve their techniques and teach some classes, math scores increased by 27% in one year.

Teacher Support and Discipline in the Classroom

Horn identifies two main reasons why teachers leave the profession: salary concerns and lack of administrative support for classroom discipline.

"The number one reason is salary, and we absolutely must increase their salaries," Horn states. "The second is failure of administrators to support them in discipline."

Citing an example from Phoenix Union district, Horn describes how a teacher who told a disruptive student to do her work was met with profanity, and when she called administration for support, they advised her to "use your social emotional learning" instead of addressing the behavior.

"If the kids see the teacher being disrespected, then they say, well, why do I have to respect her?" Horn notes. "The class becomes chaotic. The kids can't learn. The teacher can't teach. And if I were a teacher, I'd leave the profession if I had to teach under those circumstances."

Horn has been advocating for legislation that would provide incentives to administrators to support their teachers in matters of discipline, emphasizing that clear boundaries are psychologically necessary for students.

Improving Reading Proficiency Through Coaching

To address reading proficiency challenges, Horn's department has implemented a coaching program that helps teachers develop skills to teach the science of reading.

"We have coaches that go to the schools to help the teachers have the skills to teach the science of reading," Horn explains. "And where coaches have done that, the results have increased very well in the number of kids who become proficient in reading."

Horn points to the "Mississippi Miracle," where that state moved from last place in educational measures to the middle of the pack by ensuring children were reading proficiently before fourth grade and providing extensive coaching resources.

"On a per capita basis, the Mississippi legislature provided them with four times as many coaches as we have," Horn notes. "So unless we can get more of an appropriation, the amount of impact that we have is limited by the number of coaches we can provide."

Administrative Bloat and Resource Allocation

Drawing from his 24 years of experience on a school board, Horn advocates for reducing administrative costs to direct more resources to classrooms. During his tenure, when his allies gained control of the board, they "sent half of the administration back to the classroom," reducing central office administration to just 2.5% of the budget.

As a legislator, Horn attempted to limit administration to 5% of school budgets statewide, but the bill faced opposition from small districts that lacked the economies of scale of larger districts.

"I thought if you can get the money out of the district office into the teachers, you're going to do much better academically," Horn says. "And as I mentioned, we did a study that demonstrated that and the media didn't pick up on it."

Federal Department of Education's Impact on State Education

Horn strongly supports the current administration's plans to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, sharing examples of how federal mandates have created irrational and counterproductive outcomes.

During his first term as superintendent in the early 2000s, Horn fought against a federal mandate that led to Navajo children who only spoke English being placed in English language learner programs—some even being taught in Spanish—because their grandparents spoke Navajo at home.

"When the federal government came down on me, I said, 'You know what, if you want to influence what I do, sue me. I'm a lawyer. I know where the courthouse is. I'll meet you there,'" Horn recounts. "And they didn't sue."

Horn believes state superintendents, who understand the needs of their states, should control education policy rather than bureaucrats in Washington. "When it's a matter of being sure people are not discriminated against, there's no one more passionate than I am," Horn says. "I was on the march in Washington in which Martin Luther King gave his famous speech. But when it's being used for preferential treatment, that's a different story."

Protecting Girls' Sports and Biological Distinctions

Horn has been leading the legal defense of Arizona's law preventing biological males from participating in girls' sports, after other defendants conceded in a lawsuit filed by "two big New York law firms."

"I was the only defendant who proceeded with the fight," Horn says. "And we're going to go to the U.S. Supreme Court if we have to. Biological boys have no business in girls sports. And in addition to that, they have no business in girls' locker rooms or showers or bathrooms."

After adverse rulings from a Tucson judge and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Horn remains confident that the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold the law. He sees the case as a crucial battle against efforts to erase gender distinctions.

"Title IX was fought for very hard to give girls a chance to compete and to excel in sports, just as boys do," Horn emphasizes. "And the last administration, by pushing the idea that a boy can say he's a girl and play in girl sports, it destroys that completely."

Vision for Arizona's Educational Future

Looking to the future, Horn highlights his department's focus on ensuring students graduate either college or career-ready. To address workforce needs, he has expanded career technical education and established the Arizona Education Economic Council to connect teachers with information about the skills industry needs.

"We have 15 initiatives to help the schools improve their academics," Horn says. "And I'm involved in every one."

Horn believes his department's focused efforts are already yielding results, particularly in the state's lowest-performing schools. "We focused on the bottom 5% of schools, 90-some schools. And we sent out improvement teams to help them with highly qualified teachers and principals. And after our help, 70% of those schools were no longer in the bottom 5%."

These improvements create a virtuous cycle, Horn notes. "Schools with better attendance rates, not only is it more satisfying, the kids doing better, but they have virtually no teacher turnover, because teachers will stay if they have the satisfaction of feeling they're accomplishing something."