Brooke Edwards. Courtesy photo.
By Pat Stinson
MANISTEE – A countdown has begun for Brooke Edwards, Freshwater Reporter’s space and astronomy columnist. Known for hosting area star parties since 2019 as a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, Edwards will embark on a new mission next month. That’s when she’ll assume the role of Space Reporter for Florida Today. The Brevard County daily newspaper offers Space Coast coverage and is part of the USA Today network.
“This is really what I’ve wanted my whole life,” she told us as we met her on a rare warm and sunny afternoon last week. “I still can’t believe it,” she added, shaking her head as if to wake herself from a dream.
In her new position, Edwards will interview engineers and scientists and will be given press credentials to attend uncrewed and crewed launches at Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station.
Her press pass will allow her to attend launches from a blockhouse and crewed launches from an area at KSC known as the Launch Complex 39 Press Site. This viewing area is situated closer to launch pads 39-A and 39-B than sites available to the public.
Asked if she would be heading to a newsroom to work, she replied, “I’ll be mostly in the field, gathering info.”
As a woman reporting about space, she said she wants to serve as an example for those without an affinity for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). She added that they can be involved in STEAM, which also includes the arts.
“Not everyone is good in math or good in science,” she explained. “Engineers know the facts but can’t really get them out there so people understand.”
Where it began
Edwards holds a bachelor’s degree in education, with a minor in science, but said she discovered she didn’t want to teach and had never thought of science communication as a possible career. After graduating from Holy Family University in northeast Philadelphia, where she wrote for the student newspaper, she began blogging. Eventually, she transitioned from writing articles about nutrition to sharing her knowledge of and enthusiasm for space.
Edwards said she wondered what would happen to the space industry after NASA’s space shuttle missions ended. When Space X took off, she realized there was hope for future commercial spaceflights and crewed missions. She said it was livestreamed coverage of the Falcon Heavy rocket launch and booster landings that further fueled her passion for space and led her to think: “This is the wave of the future.”
After moving to Manistee, she worked full time in a retail position and successfully applied to become a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador. The volunteer position requires that applicants have a passion for space and NASA missions and be willing to share NASA news and the excitement of space with the public. When an announcement was made of her selection, we met with Edwards to ask her to cover space and astronomy for us.
On a mission
In the last three years, her love of all things space-related led her to train in isolation for two weeks with a handful of others as an analog astronaut in a simulated Moon mission atop a volcano in Hawaii. Her enthusiasm also prompted her to apply to take a zero-g flight to experience micro gravity, aka near-weightlessness. She successfully landed a spot in September at Lockheed Martin’s mission control center in Colorado to participate in live social media coverage of the Bennu mission touchdown.
She was actively applying for writing positions in the space field when news of the space reporter opening reached her. She said she applied immediately. After four or five interviews with Florida Today staff, she was hired.
Always looking up, her ultimate goal has not changed.
“I still want to go to space,” she said. “I want to be the first person to write a novel in space.”
We don’t doubt that this next chapter is in the stars for her.
Pat Stinson is a space enthusiast and was a co-director of the 2013 Midwest Space Fest held in Traverse City, Mich.
