Texas: Leading the way in Aerospace

By Jacob Peed

AviNation’s Jacob Peed caught up with Austin’s Scott Firsing PhD to talk about his home state of Texas and the strides the Lone Star State is making in our atmosphere and beyond.

Dr. Firsing, who owns an aviation and aerospace consultancy based out of Austin, has a doctorate in International Politics and frequently writes and comments on a wide range of topics. For fun and to make a positive difference in his state, he is running for the Texas House of Representatives when he’s not busy with his five children.

AviNation: So, Dr. Firsing, what is the latest with aviation, aerospace, and the youth in Texas?

Dr. Firsing: Great question, Jacob, but where do I begin!? To start by zooming out a bit: Florida, California, and Texas dominate the American “aerospace” sector. By aerospace, I’m bunching aviation, aerospace, defense, and space altogether. The term “aerospace” collectively refers to flight within Earth’s atmosphere as well as in outer space.

However, aerospace activity is very broad, with a multitude of commercial, industrial, and military applications. In Texas, this includes building fighter planes and helicopter assembly, navigation instrument development, advanced space-flight research, military pilot training, and commercial space travel.

As you can see, the good news is there is a ton of opportunity for the youth in Texas with numerous career options. We have nearly 2,000 aerospace establishments here in Texas that directly employ more than 137,000 Texas workers who earn an average of $98,000. These numbers make the Texas aerospace labor force one of the largest in America.

However, we must start by sparking that aerospace interest at a young age, and I’m proud to report we are doing that across the Lone Star State. We have private high schools like Rising Aviation in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that combine a challenging STEM curriculum with career-focused training in aviation and aerospace technologies. We are seeing more public schools with aviation programs, like

McKinney ISD’s Aviation Academy just outside of Dallas. The Academy uses flight simulators to teach students how to fly, they build airplanes, and they help their students work towards certifications for their careers. The Academy also plans to offer a drone program starting during the 2024-25 school year. We are witnessing further expansion outside of the major Texas metropolitan areas. McAllen ISD, near the US-Mexico border, has a new aviation program for high school seniors that took flight last fall.

AviNation: Is there any news on newer post-high school/university programs in Texas?

Dr. Firsing: There’s now truly a plethora of options available from San Antonio to Austin, to Dallas and Houston. It also doesn’t matter if you want to attend university or not. If your goal is to jump straight into aviation, perhaps to be a pilot or an aircraft mechanic, Texas has you covered.

We already have great flight and aircraft maintenance schools operating here, but others are joining the club. For example, Republic Airways’ LIFT Academy recently opened a branch in the coastal town of Galveston. This is their newest campus, after Indianapolis and Myrtle Beach, that focuses on training pilots with the location’s ideal flying conditions near the Gulf of Mexico and Houston. If one prefers being on the ground working on airframes, avionics, and engines, the US Aviation Academy headquartered in Denton, north of Fort Worth, recently opened new branches around Texas, including a new facility 30 miles from downtown Austin in San Marcos.

Speaking of my home city of Austin, a new university recently opened its doors called the University of Austin, or UATX. I recently toured the facility and spoke to some of the UATX staff. They are thrilled to be at the forefront of Texas’ space exploration boom, recently hiring a new Professor of Bioastronautics and planning to build a state-of-the-art DNA sequencing lab optimized for studying astronaut samples. This lab will be a national leader in understanding how humans can thrive in space. Additionally, UATX is developing a strong focus on in-situ space resource utilization. They see the emerging opportunity in asteroid mining as an essential national priority in the coming decades, and they want their graduates to have the technology and policy skills to lead us.

In fact, Texas is quickly becoming the outright leader in the space sector. Last year, the Texas Legislature invested $350 million into the new Texas Space Commission. This is exciting for young people who have their eyes on the stars because $200 million of this money is for the new Texas A&M Space Institute and the construction of a Texas A&M facility next to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. The Texas government and overall private/public sector will need young, bright, and ambitious individuals to ensure that Texas becomes and remains the leader in the field of space exploration.

AviNation: Your passion for space and helping youth is very evident. When did you know you wanted to work in aerospace? What drove your interest?

Dr. Firsing: I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately after a question I received on the campaign trail about some of my earliest childhood memories. One of those memories was January 1986 when something so unexpected happened that it shocked America. The Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members aboard. As a very young student, with an older brother in elementary school, it was a huge deal that a civilian teacher, Christa McAuliffe, was on board and lost her life. After years of launches with no incidents, it was almost incomprehensible.

This event is part of the reason why I’m so interested in space activities and will be an avid learner in this field until the day I die. However, I was also a huge fan, like many Americans, of Star Wars, Star Trek, and cartoons associated with space like Transformers. We didn’t have the Internet and cell phones, so these shows were such an important part of our lives. Overall, I’m absolutely thrilled we are finally going back to the moon and beyond.

And of course, you can’t talk about the 1980s and America without mentioning Top Gun and everyone wanting to be Maverick.

AviNation: Scott, I know you are a father of five. Any advice for parents to get their children excited about the aviation and aerospace sector?

Dr. Firsing: I’d say watching films like the new Top Gun: Maverick helps, but it doesn’t quite have the same effect as it did for our generation decades ago. My kids, soon ages 12-19, need to be more “immersed.”

At home, playing the latest Microsoft Flight Simulator with VR options really exposes kids to flight and aviation in general. On the space side, well-known games like No Man’s Sky help kids learn about planetary ecosystems and mining and using resources.

However, getting your children out of the house to do aerospace-related activities is still the icing on the cake. Attending air shows is always impactful. Texas has some great shows, including Wings Over Houston, held in October every year. It’s located on historic Ellington Field, with five of the six military branches of the U.S. Department of Defense – Army, Navy, and Marine Reserve units, Army, and Air National Guard – in addition to the Coast Guard under the Department of Homeland Security, and NASA operations – located there. Ellington is also home to the Lone Star Flight Museum, which is highly recommended.

I took two of my children to the Johnson Space Center a few years back, and they loved the museum, especially seeing the Saturn V rocket.

I’d also highly recommend parents search for STEM summer camps. I know the Lone Star Museum does one. Often universities located near your house will have camp options, some with an aerospace focus. The camps that incorporate higher fidelity flight simulators are particularly fun.

Moreover, flight schools are always happy to take interested youth on discovery flights. Even 15 minutes up in the air will be a very memorable experience for a child. I still remember my first flight, in a Cessna 172, as I’m sure you and your readers do.

I recently took all five of my children on a helicopter flight around Las Vegas, which was an interesting experience. You just quite never know how your kids will react. My wife and I learned very quickly that one of our daughters is absolutely terrified of helicopters. She cried profusely and didn’t speak to me for days. However, on the opposite side of the spectrum, our 16-year-old son absolutely loved it. He’s now considering a career as an aircraft mechanic and is strongly considering joining the Air Force when he graduates high school in two years’ time.