What Does NASA and the United States Military Have to Do With Student Athletes?

(image above: building something great always start with raw material, symbolized here by a fresh batch of molten metal; you’re probably wondering what the image has to do with student athletes,…believe me, it has everything to do with student athletes and our passion,…just stay with us over the next few posts).

My background…

The purpose of my posts will be about how we plan to bring the intersections between NASA and the United States Military to solve a big problem for an amazing group of people who live amongst us “normal” people → student athletes. Before we get started on this journey, let me share some background about myself.

I have lived two independent lives, in parallel; one at NASA Johnson Space Center and one with the United States Navy. I have been fortunate and blessed to have helped solve some very hard problems in human spaceflight at the NASA Johnson Space Center over the past 20 years, and to be part of some very tough military missions, to include deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, in the United States Navy over the past 17 years. Like many kids, my passion was to serve in our military and to become a United States Astronaut (since the age of 6, actually). I had zero clue on how to make this happen, but I was stubborn, laser focused, and would never take “no” for an answer.

Being a “rocket scientist” and Naval Officer has taught me a lot about human performance, human development, strategy, and the power of what it can do when combined.

My passion and purpose, or so I thought…

I’ve wanted to be in the military and an Astronaut since the age of 6. The military because I am a military brat (my father was in the US Army). He made me shine his shoes and iron his uniform over and over and over and over — I hated it until the cows came home — but soon became crazy attracted to the idea of being part of this special group of people in our society. Becoming an Astronaut because I wanted to walk on the moon. Over the course of the next three decades, I obsessively and thoughtfully researched, planned, strategized, and executed my plan.

Statistically speaking, the odds of becoming an Astronaut are between 0.25% and 0.5% — no biggie — I’ll just follow NASA’s roadmap. While there are never any guarantees in life, nor any magic success pills, NASA’s roadmap would at least point me in the right direction to increase my odds of success. One tiny problem, there is no freakin roadmap (a colossal mistake by NASA, more on this in a future post)! So, I forged my own. After achieving accomplishments across multiple broad fields, stumbling, tripping, and falling hundreds of times, support of family, and the generous help of numerous amazing friends,…I got my chance. This kid who grew up in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco was selected to be one of 120 from over 6000 applicants to go through the coveted “Astronaut candidate” interview in October 2012. I flew back from Afghanistan mid-deployment, did the interview, then flew back to Afghanistan (talk about a mental tornado). I did not make the final cut. A once in a lifetime opportunity, blessed for it.

My deployments were life changing, so much so that I began to question my Astronaut aspirations in exchange for an even larger life goal. Combining this with not getting selected after numerous deep personal and professional sacrifices, and ferocious effort towards beating “that 0.5%,” convinced me that I have a larger life purpose.

At the age of 42, I found my purpose…

It took being away from family during deployments, several near-death events during deployments, and coming inches away from becoming a US Astronaut to realize the deeper “what I must go do and the why behind it” — it is my duty to use my background and experiences to make an even larger impact into the world around me — but I needed to be very specific. So, I left NASA after almost 20 years in order to find that purpose. While working at the great tech startup Intuitive Machines (my “day job”), I attended numerous veteran tech startup events during evenings and weekends to also be around other veteran entrepreneurs who want to apply their military background to solve hard problems.

At one such veteran entrepreneur event (Patriot Boot Camp presented by Techstars), I met an Army veteran who was a student athlete at West Point, then Oregon State, then tried out for the San Francisco 49ers. He did not make the team. His childhood passion was to serve in the military and play NFL. He was laser focused, did not have a roadmap, stumbled, and had friends that helped him get as far as he could. He did not know how to increase his odds of success in sports nor did anyone tell him how to prepare for and be successful in life after sports — because sports will end sooner than every athlete thinks — he personally knew more can, should, and must be done. POW! BAM! SMACK!

I’ve always wanted to help the younger generation in a powerful way. I wanted to use my NASA and military backgrounds to help lift up a unique group of young adults that have similar characteristics to the military — laser focus, passion, team players, commitment, disciplined — BINGO — athletes! So, I left my “day job” to devote 100% of me to this mission. THIS IS MY PURPOSE!

What is a student athlete?…

A student athlete must live two lives at the same time, she must be a student and an athlete. A student athlete is a person that has made the decision to devote a lot of time, effort, passion, and focus to achieve excellence on and off the field towards her pursuit of purpose. The purpose of trying to achieve very lofty goals and to do something very few people can do. She makes many personal and professional sacrifices along the way. She may not know how to increase her odds of success in sports nor life after sports.

I see much, much more. I see student athletes in a league of their own; they not only have to do what every student does, but they also have to endure the pain, sacrifices, and demands of being an athlete. Parents many times sell their student athlete short — they don’t realize the full potential a student athlete has within herself nor the real impact a student athlete can make around her. Excellence on and off the field is hard, very hard. WE ARE GOING TO MAKE THIS BETTER.

What’s next?…

Over the course of the next few updates, I’ll be focused on sharing a lot more of our mission and the tool we will offer that will completely re-define how pre-college student athletes control their pursuit towards their dream; how we will transform their passion to play in college and beyond into a powerful engine that increases their odds of success in sports and life after sports. As part of our research, we discovered some simple, yet powerful tips that can help any parent and student athlete in any sport understand the most basic elements in building your minimum foundation — I want to give this away, period. It will be available in 2 or 3 posts from now, stay tuned.

“Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting” — Larry Page (co-founder of Google)

“This is what I intend to do” — KC

Now, are you ready to be the parent of a complete athlete?

Published with Excitement!
KC Chhipwadia
CEO and Founder
(company name: to be announced in 2 weeks)

PS
We are also looking to select 10–15 passionate parents of 6th, 7th, and 8th grade student athletes. These parents will receive exclusive “concierge-like” hands-on service to build their student athlete’s roadmap to college sports and beyond — for free. If you are interested, drop me a note at kcusnavy@gmail.com, we will be in touch with you within 3 days to discuss the next steps.

PPS
Next update in my journey will be next week. I’ll be sharing my thoughts about a “typical” Student Athlete journey and why you don’t need a Rocket Scientist (although it can help :)) to increase your odds of success in sports and life after sports.

PPS
Link to blog post #2
Link to blog post #3
Link to blog post #4
Link to blog post #5 (free roadmap download!)