Meet Janet Ivey, CEO and founder of Janet’s Planet, an educational company dedicated to bringing the wonders of space and science to children.

For over 25 years, Janet has captivated young minds through her TV programs, live shows, and educational camps, using her creative background in theater, music, and communication to make science fun and accessible. As a passionate advocate for space education, Janet is also the Director of Education at Explore Mars, where she plays a key role in shaping the future of space exploration through outreach and engagement.

Growing up in a small town in Tennessee, Janet’s journey has been driven by her belief in the power of curiosity, creativity, and dreaming big. In this episode, she shares her mission to inspire the next generation of space enthusiasts, empowering kids to explore their potential through science, space, and imagination.

Perfect for parents and teachers, this episode will give you plenty of inspiration to share with your kids and spark their interest in space!

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Janet’s journey from entertainment to space education.

• How space exploration can ignite curiosity and inspire kids.

• The importance of using creativity to teach science.

• Stories of perseverance, mentorship, and the importance of dreaming big.

• Janet’s vision for how kids today will shape the future of space.

Quote:

“The chances of you being you as you are… is 1 in 400 quadrillion.

And yet, here you are. So what will you do with this one wild and wondrous life?”

- Janet Ivey

Episode Links:

• Janet’s Planet Website

• Janet on LinkedIn

• Janet’s Planet on Facebook

• Janet’s Planet on YouTube

Credits:

Production by CxS Partners LTD

Executive Producer: Toby Goodman

Audio & Sound Design: Lee Turner

Artwork: Ryan Field

Find your place in the business of space: https://interastra.space

The chances of you being you as you are with your unduplicable, and I mean unrepeatable, I mean, never gonna be another you ever is 1 in 400 quadrillion. I mean, the math really is on the side of you not being here, and yet, here you are.

Hi. I'm Janet Ivey with Janet's Planet, and you are listening to 'Your Business in Space'.

I like to tell people that I am a galaxy of things, not just the one thing, but an entire galaxy of things. So on a day to day basis, I am the CEO and founder of Janet's Planet, my very own company that I founded back in the late nineties when I looked around, and the only people that I could find telling people about science at all were Bill Nye the Science Guy and a show in America called Beakman's World that had a girl sidekick that always was like, what? What do you mean? And I was like, hey, why is the girl not the smartest person there? So I developed Janet's Planet, and I have been, doing short little spots for public television for the last almost 25 years. I also produce a live show called Janet's Planet Tour of the Solar System where we literally talk, about every planet in our solar system starting with the sun and zooming on out through the Kuiper Belt. And then I also come and sometimes do camps and say, hey, let's learn a ton of stuff and I bring tons of my great science education friends.

But I've also been the president of explore mars.org which sounds like that sounds interesting. Yes. I was president of that for a while and our whole mission is to see you guys on Mars one day. And that's right. You guys will be the people going to Mars unless they decide to take a granny, which I'm up for. If you need a granny to bake cookies and go to Mars, I would say yes. So just letting you know in case you need one when you get there. Now I'm their director of education because truly being president for 4 years of an organization is kinda like long enough.

So I thought, hey, you know what? I'm all into education anyway. That's probably a better role. And then nobody hardly knows this anymore because I spend so much time being Janet's Planet now. But sometimes I'm an actress. That's right. There's a couple of movies on Amazon, Prime. One called The Least of These where I play the town's, Santa Claus, missus Santa Claus, kinda like married to the guy who is the Santa Claus in town. And then there's another one called Christmas in Evergreen.

That's where I grew up. Home of the Charms Blow Pop, now owned, I think, by the Tootsie Roll Company and birthplace of Isaac Hayes. And you may not know who he is, but he's a great soul singer, Anne Cottonfields. And that's really all that is in my hometown. One of the best things about growing up where I did. I should tell you about my parents first. My dad didn't even finish the 8th grade. What? I know.

That's crazy. Right? Didn't even finish the 8th grade. When he was 14, he was tired of farming, hated raising chickens, walked to town, saw a sign that said, hey, we are hiring or maybe he even maybe he even, like, went in and asked if there was a job available because I didn't know this. My dad was not a really great reader either. He actually learned to read better when he and my mom married when he ordered the newspaper. I know that's a foreign concept, but, again, think about that. He's 14 years old and he says he goes in, he asked this guy for a job. It's a plumbing company.

And when the guy said, well, how old are you? He didn't tell the truth. He said age 16. The next day, he is driving a truck 2 hours away from Covington. He doesn't even know how to drive a truck, but somehow he gets all the stuff there. It's a wonder he didn't kill the transmission. And so, yeah, he literally began his plumbing career at age 14, and that is stunning to me. Because what is the most stunning about this story is that he kept learning. He visually memorized how things went together when he couldn't read what it said or meant or didn't know what it meant.

And so by the time, he was in his mid forties and fifties, It's like Baptist Hospitals in Memphis would not do a hospital without my father. St. Jude's Children's Hospital would not put in a med gas line, which is kind of like all of the different kind of anesthesia that and different things that run into a surgery room if my father wasn't supervising because they knew how meticulous. And so I love that story about my dad because I think that is what persistence and perseverance is all about. And that even if you have humble beginnings, that has no bearing on where you can go if you make your mind up and set your course that, yes, I am going to achieve something with my life. I will tell you the greatest lesson my dad ever taught me. And again, remember, didn't go lesson my dad ever taught me. And again, remember, didn't go to high school, didn't go to college.

But I'm about 7 years old and we're driving between Covington and Memphis. We're gonna stop in a little place called Frasier at the Circle k, and we're going in to buy chocolate milk and some donuts. I mean, because it's Saturday morning. I think I must have been going with him to run an errand to do a short job. I don't know. I was always my dad's little pal. So as we go in, my dad is was always smiling, always chatting people up, and he's like, hey. How's everybody doing? La, you're looking good.

Hi, everybody. And then the lady behind the counter, he goes, man, you're looking beautiful today. And And I remember looking up at him like, what? So we go back. I mean, I can remember this so clearly. We go back. We get the chocolate milk. We get the donuts. We go back up there to the counter, and now my dad is really pouring on the charm.

And he keeps telling her, it's like, you look good smiling. Don't you dare not smile. You have a good day, good looking. You hear me? We get in the car, and I'm like, what is wrong, baby girl? And I'm like, I am gonna tell mama. And he's like, what? And I said, you were flirting, and, by the way, that lady wasn't very pretty, and she didn't have many teeth. And he grabs my little chubby face, and he goes, listen here, little girl. Everybody's beautiful. You never judge anyone by race, creed, color, anything ever, not by what they have or what they don't have.

You love everybody and you make them feel so good that they remember how good you made them feel when you left. I was like, yes, sir. And I knew as a little girl that was gonna be one of the guiding principles of my life, And I've told that story so many times. He's about to turn 82. He's not in great health. But I will tell you that lesson from my not well educated father is one of the greatest things he ever gave me because what it did is it empowered me to dream and that anything was possible. So I can remember playing astronaut on the playground. I also remember playing Star Trek because my friend Carol Burnett, that was a real name, not the famous lady, but that was her real name.

And we would live long and prosper. She had walkie talkies, and we were beaming up. And I did. I dreamt of playing I dreamt of being an astronaut. There were these really beautiful kind of cylindrical, monkey bars that were on the playground. And, yeah, we would pretend like it was our rocket ship. But the most powerful person other than my dad, in my life as a young girl was a woman named missus Ernestine Yarborough Jones, who was my 5th grade teacher. Beautiful African American woman who every Friday would come by and whisper something in your ear that was meant for you and you alone, and she would tell you, Janet, you're a great writer.

I played the saxophone and then bass clarinet. I was a band nerd and marched in the band. I was in chorus. I was in drama. I had to lead my senior year. And so there was also this love of, like, drama and art and theater and music. And so I couldn't get away from that either no matter how much I love my astronomy. So when I finally go to college, I went to Belmont University and I majored in music and theater.

And you're like, what? Wait a minute. You're telling me that some of the times that you are getting calls from CNN and CNN International and they're asking you about space and science commentary and yet you studied music and theater? Well, here's what I wanna let you know that it worked for da Vinci. He let his art inform his science and his science inform his art. I mean, we know about his amazing paintings. We know about his amazing science. I mean, he even drew what we think is probably the first kind of like illustration of a modern day helicopter. I mean, again, these are the things. So if you love your sports, your drama, your theater, maybe you even love communicating and you're a YouTuber, be a YouTuber for good, Express something amazing that everybody would be interested that increases curiosity.

Right? So you can do all the things you love. Like I said at the very first, you can be an entire galaxy of things. One of the jobs that I had that was my very favorite right after I graduated college was a job at a place called the Opryland theme park, and I did a show called the Opryland kids club. I was about 20 5 years old when I finally got the job, and it's like I had been working in different things, and they're like, hey. Would you be interested in doing this show with kids for kids? And I'm like, hey. It's a job performing. I'll take it. Never did I know, like, when I was, you know, thinking about what I could do in music and theater, did I think that I would fall in love with working with kids for kids and I loved the job.

We did 4 shows a day. But during that process, I realized, you know what? This is going to end and what could I do? And I'm like, like I said, Bill Nye the Science Guy, and that's when I knew after the Opryland Kids Club, I wonder if I could do something called Janet's Planet. And lucky for me, one of the kids' dads was an attorney and he's like, let's look it up in the trademark registry. Nobody had it. So that's where I planted my flag virtually. I'll be a girl who touts the wonders of science through, like, performing and television and any other thing that I can conceive of. And that's how Janet's Planet was born because I always knew that I loved space. But as I thought about, man, what can I do with Janet's planet? I was like, you know what? We can tout science and we can use space as this most exciting invitation.

I mean, what's more exciting than thinking about hopping in your rocket, buckling in, and zooming through places yet unexplored? And so I always thought about Janet's planet being this eye looking out into the vastness and grandness of space and yet always being able to turn back around and look back at planet Earth and going, that's where the good stuff is. That's where home is. But look at this invitation and how we're related to everything. I mean, Carl Sagan said, we are star stuff, and I hope you already know this, but it's worth reminding you that from the calcium in your teeth, to the carbon in your DNA, to the iron in your blood, look at those veins there, to the iron in your blood, you are made from the very same things that exist in the hearts of stars. I know. So shine bright because you, my friends, are thermodynamic miracles. You're a walking battery full of energy. And remember, energy is never destroyed, it's only transferred.

So what kind of energy will you give off? What kind of amazing power will you reveal? What will you innovate or create that can make this whole world and maybe the Moon and Mars even better? And so go and walk about the chances of you being you as you are with your unduplicable and I mean unrepeatable, I mean never gonna be another you ever, is 1 in 400 quadrillion. I mean, the math really is on the side of you not being here, and yet, here you are. So what will you do with this one wild and wondrous life that you have? And really when I started to think about how I could communicate all of that to you, get you excited about the future of what was going to come and happen in space, get you excited about being curious and following any kind of trail of curiosity that you could conceive that I knew that that is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. How the business of space opened up for me is that, again, I at started doing my Janet's Planet interstitials, and that's just a big fancy word for a 1 to 2 minute spot that was playing on public television either at the top of the hour or at the at the half hour. And, you know, I started getting traction. More and more stations wanted to have Janet's Planet, and we were at the time doing things from everything from health to science to history. And then I got approached by someone in Nashville, Tennessee where I live who is a music producer, and he's like, you know, I do music, and my kids love Janet's Planet. We should do a record about space and science.

I was like, yep. And then in the middle of that, you know, what else we should do? We should add some video because I also do video. Why not, like, combine those two things? Well, we end up creating this very homegrown product about the solar system using some of my acting students. And I thought, who do we need that needs to sponsor this? Well, I was kind of, like, very naive at the time. I was like, Richard Branson, of course, needs to sponsor this. Why wouldn't he love it? So I get on LinkedIn and I'm, like, starting to search around and I couldn't find Richard Branson, but I found this guy named Richard Godwin who had worked for Richard Branson. And I thought, what and at the time, he was president of the National Space Society. So I'm thinking worlds converge.

I had no idea what these people did. So, hi. I'm Janet. I do this thing, and the guy writes me back. He goes, if you don't do anything for your business, you need to get to the International Space Development Conference sponsored by the National Space Society. This was 2,008 and I had my my sweet little, like, DVD. I go off and share my DVD that I done. And I will tell you, for some of you going, wow, they just must have welcomed you with open arms.

Some of them, yes. Others told me that it was really sweet. They kinda it's like virtually patted me on my head, kinda looked at me like I was a unicorn and that it was the silliest idea of all. I even had a guy tell me, that's ridiculous. Space is hard. How do you possibly think that you can explain such a hard concept to kids? And then I to remind him that I think kids are the most smart, genius people on the planet, and we need to pay attention to that. I know you know you guys know you're the smartest ever. So anyway, I meet a guy from Space Florida, and they take my DVD.

And I was like, he's gotta be making that up. And then he asked me, do I want to fly aboard a 0 g flight? Because they really love the DVD that I did and they've gotta take microgravity to Florida classrooms. So how would I like to fly aboard the 0 g plane and experience what astronauts experience in space, microgravity? I had to pull the phone away, do the Snoopy dance. Yes. That would be fantastic. I needed to act like an adult. So I got to fly twice, produce the DVD, ended up winning an Emmy award, ended up meeting Buzz Aldrin, who said, we need more people like you communicating space to the kids. That literally is, how it happened.

So I went from being nobody, anybody knew except to Haive. She's doing this cute stuff on public television to attending a space conference. And here's the thing. What I realized is that if you love and enjoy what other people kinda like, you go away. You like that too? Oh, me too. You find yourself among friends. Then a few years later, I would go, oh, I don't have these fancy degrees. I don't have a title that calls me doctor Janet.

And I was like, what? And he's like, I had it too, but I wanna encourage you. He goes, when I used to draw for NASA, when I first got the job and the engineers would bring me these designs that they had made and they're like, hey, Pat, can you kind of conceptualize, you know, kind of like what we're thinking about here? And he goes, and I would add a window or a doorknob or a little thing. And he goes, just being artistic. They would come back, Pat, you saved you so much trouble. You're exactly right. Of course, that should be there. He goes, I realized I offered something they didn't have. And because I had something they didn't have but was useful, then I had a right to be there.

He goes, so I'm gonna tell you, Janet of Janet's Planet, that if you can communicate these concepts and get young people interested in it before they get to college, then you deserve a seat at the table and you've got a way of doing something that they need. And that was so beautiful. So I hope that one day you'll participate and decide to maybe be a part of the Explore Mars Mars Innovation Challenge and then attend like a Human to Mars Summit or maybe do the Space Settlement Design Competition for the National Space Society and there's so many other things that you can participate in. And never ever think that because of whatever country you come from or whatever city you might live in, that you also aren't invited to participate. And I actually think that the space industry happens to have the most kind, amazing, smart, beautiful people ever because everywhere I've gone, it's people are like, oh, tell me more about what you do, and I think that's pretty fun. So when it comes to the business of space, I think the biggest misconception is, oh, it's only for a certain group of people. It's only for the people who are going to be astronaut. It's only for the people, the billionaires who can afford to do it.

And I will just tell you that what I am seeing and experiencing, this is false. It is for everybody. The space industry needs everybody from, seamstresses. I don't know if you've seen it, but there are actual people who have to sew the cool space suits that SpaceX designs. Even back when Apollo missions were happening, it was a room full of women sewing together those 19 layers of fabric that protected the astronauts on the Moon. So I just think that I want you to get rid of that you have to be from a certain place or that you have to be a certain kind of profession to be in space. And I think to be successful in space, you start every day becoming that thing that you want to be. You want to be like the culinary chef that sends food for the astronauts to Mars.

You wanna be the space farmer that figures out how to grow food in the most inhospitable places, you make that decision. And I promise, if it is something that we need here on Earth daily in our lives, they will need it in space. And if you figure out how to deliver that, you shall be successful. And maybe the opportunities I'm most excited about in space are simply some of the ones I've just mentioned. Like my dad who was a plumber that I mentioned at first. In Inspiration 4, that mission where doctor Sian Proctor was the first African American female to ever pilot an orbital flight on that flight with the Inspiration 4 astronauts, their toilet didn't work. Somebody would have really loved to have had a space plumber at that moment, or space welder, or space electrician, a maintenance worker. One of these days, companies like Above Space will have an orbiting platform.

It'll be like a hotel and a kind of like experiment in Space Science Research Center orbiting just out there in a circle. They're gonna need hospitality, folks. They're gonna need people who actually take care of and make sure everything's okay. So imagine you come home, hey, guys. I've got a job. Fantastic. Where? In space. As the concierge for, yeah, this floating platform.

So it's an exciting world out there. Anything that you wanna be from chef to meteorologist, biologist, geologist, farmer, and plumber, it is out there waiting on you. Right now, I am focused on just making sure that you are empowered to live out your best life. Now, some of you may go, wait a minute, Jana. I have no desire to go to space. Fantastic. Then we need you in mission control. We need you building all of the things that we will need for the future explorers that go on to the moon and Mars, and the ones that will go to Mars will be you.

And maybe that's what I'm most excited about. 20, 30, 40 years from now, hopefully, it's more like 35 because I still wanna be alive for all of that, is that I'll be sitting in my rocking chair watching the news, and I'll go, holy cow. I knew they would get there, and maybe that's going to be you. My last bit of advice is if you can dream it or conceive it, just go for it. Because when you think about it, whatever might be science fiction today could be science reality tomorrow because of something you discover later on this afternoon. So if you can dream it and conceive it, it can become science reality.

I'm Janet Ivey with Janet's Planet. You've been listening to 'Your Business in Space'.

All the ways you can connect with me are in the links in the show notes.

To discover more head on over to interastra.space

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