Johnson Shoots for the (Dallas) Stars: Inside the Dallas Stars’ NASA Night

Sometimes, thinking about the great beyond isn’t limited to space but, rather, venturing outside of Space City and into the heart of Texas. NASA’s Johnson Space Center recently did just that when it collaborated with the National Hockey League’s Dallas Stars. The Texas hockey team hosted their first-ever NASA Night on April 5, 2022, in the American Airlines Center.

The Stars ensured NASA was a part of all aspects of their game night, kicking it off with International Space Station Flight Director Paul Konyha dropping the puck in front of the crowd of 12,844 to the team captains from the Stars and the New York Islanders. And, during a game filled with fun space-themed songs, videos, and quiz questions to entertain the fans, the team took a moment to recognize retired Army officer and current NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei as the “Veteran of the Game” in honor of his recent return to Earth after a record-breaking 355 days in space aboard the space station. Even the Stars’ own alien mascot, Victor E. Green, got in on the NASA excitement when he posted a video showing his visit Space Center Houston before the game to learn more about NASA.

Planning a NASA Night can be a daunting task, but expanding outside of the Houston area takes time, effort, and patience, especially when working around a pandemic. In this case, it took more than two years for the organizers to see this special evening come to fruition. There are also unique considerations that go into into the decision to invest resources in a Dallas-based event, but Johnson’s External Relations Office (ERO) and the International Space Station Program Office saw this as a great opportunity to generate public engagement with non-traditional audiences for the center and agency.

“We have a detailed criteria that we use that allows us to determine resources, messaging, and if it is within our focus and audience of folks we wanted to reach,” said Dylan Mathis, integration manager for operational programs within ERO.

With the goal of public engagement in mind, the station-focused Driven to Explore mobile exhibit made the journey from Houston to Dallas to participate in the activities. Designed for audiences of all ages and equipped with multimedia highlighting human space exploration and NASA’s goals to improve life on Earth, Driven to Explore and its accompanying volunteer team first stopped at St. Phillip’s School and Community Center in downtown Dallas before moving to the American Airlines Center for the game. Nearly 600 guests visited the exhibit throughout the day.

Credits: NASA/Jeannie Aquino

“We touched a lot of people, and I’m proud to say that [the event] was the largest-attended event the trailer has been to since the start of the pandemic,” said Grayson Taylor, event coordinator with MORI Associates, Inc., at Johnson.

Mathis echoed this sentiment. “We are thrilled with the excitement and the enthusiasm that the public has toward NASA and their willingness to come and see a hockey game where a flight director throws out the first puck, and then wanting to see the mobile exhibit to talk to our team about the space station and its role as a steppingstone to the Moon and Mars.”

Discussions for future collaborations are already taking place as NASA and the Dallas Stars take to the ice and skate into this new and exciting partnership. If future events are anything like this one, they are sure to be cool.

International Space Station Flight Director Paul Konyha drops the puck for the team captains of the Dallas Stars and New York Islanders in front of the crowd of 12,844 at a special NASA Night event. Credits: Courtesy of Dallas Stars