Joyce Abbey on the SystemsGo Board: Another way to serve

What began as an arranged meeting, led to ongoing support of an innovative STEM engineering program by a NASA insider.

Joyce Abbey has now joined the Board of Directors of SystemsGo, but her involvement goes back to the beginnings of the space program.

Abbey calls herself “a child of Apollo,” a reference to her growing up in Nassau Bay across from the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Her father was George W.S. Abbey, known as “the AstronautMaker” for his involvement in the early years of the US space efforts. She was right there in the beginning, attending gatherings with neighboring astronauts, and even babysitting for them.

In spite of that upbringing, Abbey considered herself a “non-math” person and chose to get a degree in Psychology from Stephen F. Austin University.

NASA’s decision to turn over operations on its Space Shuttle program to contractors drew her back to her old stomping grounds. Abbey began her career in the space program just three weeks before the tragic Challenger accident, causing her to think she and that program would not last. But as she noted, NASA able to learn from that failure and get better.

That led to her lifelong involvement in Safety and Mission Assurance. Today Abbey details significant aerospace events to extract lessons learned to apply to current and future NASA programs. Along the way, she took a detour into communications and broadcasting. She co-hosted a morning drive-time radio show, then helmed a space-oriented internet radio show, all while supporting human spaceflight.

She continues to use those skills as Communications and External Relations director with SAIC.

Followers of SystemsGo best know her as “Joyce the Voice” of SystemsGo, for her knowledgeable emcee duties at the annual rocket launches. Every spring, she travels on her own time and expense to the three rocket launch sites in Texas – what she refers to the Texas Rocket Trail, to emcee the action from dawn to dusk. Besides counting down each of more than 150 rocket launches, Abbey enriches the activities with space trivia, student challenges, and descriptions from her lifetime of experience around the space program and the people who make it work. All launches have been livestreamed around the world, so she represents SystemsGo to a worldwide audience.

After that first meeting with Brett Williams, the Fredericksburg High School teacher who founded the program, Abbey and a colleague began helping expand the program into the greater Houston area, a role she continues to play today.

She helped create an innovative aerospace teacher externship, where middle, junior high and intermediate school, science, math, and technology teachers, come for a 40-hour summer workshop. Educators are escorted around Johnson Space Center and surrounding facilities by various contractors, detailing the work done to support human space flight, building a bridge between business and the classroom. The teachers go back and write lesson plans for their classrooms.

As a board member, she plans to continue her advocacy.

“I’ve seen the passion of the program leaders and how SystemsGo has absolutely changed the direction and opportunities students see for themselves,” she said.” They experience challenges we face every day here at work, and they are doing exactly what we do –design, develop, test, and evaluate. We do that with every spacecraft. We do that with every project.”

She is gratified at seeing the program growing from the initial handful of high schools, now expanding into neighboring states and even going international to Abu Dhabi. But the real growth is inside each individual.

“I’ve seen SystemsGo change lives and change students’ understanding of their capabilities. Teachers encourage them to try, to take risks, and that failure is not the end. You never know if you don’t try, and SystemsGo urges you to try. I’m going to help however I can.”

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Joyce Abbey is the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Knowledge Management Office Case Study Chief Investigator, and also serves as the Safety & Mission Assurance (S&MA) Engineering Contract Employee Communications/External Relations Director for Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC).

She is a graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University. At JSC and SAIC, Abbey has supported the Space Shuttle Program and led educational outreach efforts in the greater Houston area. She became a long-time industry-based supporter of SystemsGo, and has used her background in radio and media to become “The Voice” of SystemsGo, emceeing the annual rocket launches that are held at three sites in Texas and livestreamed around the world.

Abbey’s honors include SAIC CEO’s Achievement Award, SAIC’s 2023 Citizen of the Year, a NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal in 2024, NASA Space Flight Awareness Award Honoree, and Clear Creek Education Foundation’s Citizen of the Year.

“We have been so blessed to have Joyce’s support not just as ‘Joyce the Voice’ at our annual launch events but also as an advocate at SAIC and NASA,” said Rebekah Hyatt, Executive Director of SystemsGo. “She attends many of the Oberth/von Braun Flight Profile Reviews and organizes teams of engineers for the Goddard Level Critical Design Reviews. We are very excited to now have her expertise and fresh perspective on our Board of Directors.”

SystemsGo is the Fredericksburg, Texas, non-profit known for its high school aerospace engineering curriculum that uses rocketry to teach STEM and the industry R&D Loop. More information is available at www.systemsgo.org.