NASA Tech Talks: Lunar Innovations

Name: NASA Tech Talks: Lunar Innovations
Start: 2025-08-28T18:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-08-28T19:00:00-05:00
Location: Ion

The event has passed

Category: Aerospace, Founders & Startups, General Community

Free

Past Event

WHEN

Thursday

August 28, 2025

6:00 pm - 7:00 pm CDT

WHERE

Ion

4201 Main Street
Houston, TX 77002

what

We want HOU! Join us to discover NASA’s toughest tech challenges—and apply your skills and expertise to solve them.

At this month’s NASA Tech Talk, we’re going to learn more about patents, innovation, and space exploration.

How do you get patents for systems used on the Moon? How do you even think of something new? In “Lunar Innovations,” Julie N. Strickland shares two of her patent-awarded systems and the story behind them. From a way to rescue an astronaut to a system that removes heat from a lunar habitat, Strickland explains the thought process that went into developing these ideas. She breaks down the process from finding a problem worth solving to the amount of detail needed for a patent application.

Please join us after the talk for drinks and networking at Second Draught!

About the Speakers

With almost 20 years in the aerospace industry, Julie N. Strickland is an experienced engineer, project manager, and innovator. She earned her degree in mechanical engineering so that she could facilitate space exploration. She worked on the design of the next generation spacesuit, the Orion capsule, and the Space Launch System (SLS). She is a space enthusiast to her core.

Ms. Strickland holds multiple patent awards in the US and internationally. She mentored junior employees over the years, teaching them how to develop ideas that may become patents. Under her leadership, the business unit increased invention disclosures by 10%.

Today, she works as a Research & Development Project Manager, teaching a new team how to better innovate. Her business, Strawberry Innovation, provides coaching, presentations, and workshops. Outside of work, she enjoys hiking, writing, and traveling. Her grand goal is to hike in every state in the nation with 60% of the states hiked so far.

Learn more about Strickland on her company website at StrawberryInnovation.org

Montgomery B. Goforth has more than 40 years of experience as both Engineer and Manager in a variety of highly technical space and defense-related efforts. After working for a small defense contractor specializing in anti-submarine warfare, he joined NASA’s Johnson Space Center in 1990. He has held leadership positions in multiple JSC Directorates and Program Offices. In his current role as Assistant Director of the JSC Engineering Directorate, he has established a framework to better focus Engineering’s efforts towards Human Spaceflight technology and systems development consistent with JSC and Agency goals for exploration. He has used this framework to guide Engineering’s internal investments and external partnerships supporting Lunar and Mars Exploration. Mr. Goforth was born in East Texas, raised in Southern California and Arizona, and graduated from Rice University (BSME 1982, MSME 1987).

About NASA Tech Talks

In these presentations, occurring the fourth Thursdays of the month, Mr. Montgomery Goforth and other aerospace subject matter experts will discuss the technology development challenges faced by NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the surrounding Aerospace community in our ongoing efforts as the hub of human spaceflight. Presentations will focus on the ways in which these challenges, and the associated opportunities, can be leveraged by Houston’s innovation community. We will continue to identify potential space/terrestrial technologies of interest to Human Spaceflight. Past NASA Tech Talks have included topics such as:

From Space to Startup: Leveraging NASA Technology and Innovation to Propel Your Growing Enterprise
Disruptive Filter Technology for Spacecraft Water Treatment: The New Promise of Graphene
Lunar dust capture using novel multiplexed inertial filter
Lunar Passive Fuel Cell Technologies:
Microbes in Space

PARKING

Ion District Parking Garage

Enter 4111 Fannin Street into your GPS for directions directly to this parking garage, located a block from the Ion. Parking in the Ion District Garage is free for the first two hours.

Red Parking Lot

Enter 4203 Fannin Street into your GPS for directions directly to the red parking lot, located across the street from the Ion. This lot is for overflow guest parking and tenant parking and is free for the first three hours.

For more information and access to pay online for parking in the red lot, click here.

Download Map

CONTACT

Organizer

Ion

Organizer Website

ionhouston.com

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