Nancy Con­rad has been a Foggy Bot­tom res­i­dent for three years.

Many Foggy Bot­tom res­i­dents got a birds-eye view of the Space Shut­tle Discovery’s last flight on April 17 as it headed to the Smithsonian’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Cen­ter atop a 747.

That was the shuttle’s final mis­sion after a 30-year run and it will now serve as a piece of liv­ing his­tory. For many Wash­ing­to­ni­ans it will be their first expe­ri­ence with the NASA space pro­gram, but for one Foggy Bot­tom res­i­dent outer space was a way of life for her family.

Shoot­ing for the moon comes nat­u­rally to writer and edu­ca­tor Nancy Con­rad. Her late hus­band was an astro­naut and she is the founder of the Con­rad Foun­da­tion, an orga­ni­za­tion that helps young peo­ple gen­er­ate ideas that are out of this world.

The Con­rad Foun­da­tion was cre­ated in 2008, and its sig­na­ture pro­gram is the Spirit of Inno­va­tion Chal­lenge. The annual com­pe­ti­tion chal­lenges high school stu­dents to develop commercially-viable, technology-based prod­ucts that address real-world chal­lenges and global sustainability.

Con­rad, who also serves as chair­man, says she cre­ated the Con­rad Foun­da­tion to ‘ener­gize and engage stu­dents in sci­ence and tech­nol­ogy through unique entre­pre­neur­ial oppor­tu­ni­ties.’ The non­profit orga­ni­za­tion focuses on improv­ing the cur­rent meth­ods of teach­ing sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy, engi­neer­ing, and math (STEM) in high schools around the coun­try. This year’s com­pe­ti­tion included teams of stu­dents from nine coun­tries and 49 states and sev­eral vir­tual teams made up of stu­dents from var­i­ous states. Con­rad says the com­pe­ti­tion gives learn­ing a con­text and gets stu­dents excited.

“A hun­dred per­cent of the stu­dents who par­tic­i­pate go on to pur­sue STEM or busi­ness careers.”

The Con­rad Foun­da­tion is the only orga­ni­za­tion of its kind to com­bine edu­ca­tion, inno­va­tion and entre­pre­neur­ship to inspire solu­tions for achiev­ing global sus­tain­abil­ity. The chal­lenge cat­e­gories range from aero­space explo­ration to agri­cul­tural sci­ence technology.

“It’s not enough to leave a bet­ter coun­try for our chil­dren, we need to leave bet­ter chil­dren for our country.”

Con­rad cre­ated the Foun­da­tion based on her late hus­band, Apollo 12 Astro­naut Charles “Pete” Con­rad. He and Nancy were mar­ried for nearly ten years when he died unex­pect­edly in 1999 from a motor­cy­cle acci­dent. His legacy also con­tin­ues through the book Rock­et­man: Astro­naut Pete Conrad’s Incred­i­ble Ride to the Moon and Beyond, which is co-authored by Nancy and Howard Klausner.

The book is a heart-felt account of Pete’s life which details his strug­gle with a learn­ing dis­abil­ity as a child and his rise to become the real ‘Space Cow­boy.’ He enjoyed an incred­i­ble career with NASA. His accom­plish­ments include fly­ing two Gem­ini mis­sions, walk­ing on the moon as Com­man­der of Apollo 12, and com­mand­ing the first Skylab.

“Peo­ple can see the human story behind one of America’s heroes, it’s not a story about going to the moon but about a man’s life,” said Nancy Con­rad. “Pete used his career to reach out to stu­dents and gave them their ‘moon shot’.”

Now Nancy is con­tin­u­ing that trend by giv­ing young peo­ple their ‘STEM shot’ and help­ing them use sci­ence, tech­nol­ogy, engi­neer­ing, and math to change the world.

To learn more about the Spirit of Inno­va­tion Chal­lenge and the Con­rad Foun­da­tion visit www.conradawards.org