NASA's Inspiration Tour has brought Space Grant students into the center of its nationwide stops, according to a NASA account published Nov. 4, 2026. At Iowa State University, Administrator Jared Isaacman toured the Make to Innovate lab, where students from the Iowa Space Grant Consortium's Mission Moon program and groups including Cardinal Space Mining, CySat and CyLaunch shared research findings. A town hall covered the agency's Moon Base efforts.

At the University of Arizona, the administrator saw satellite communications testing, deep-space optics, student-built high-altitude balloon payloads and small satellites, and took questions from local high school and college students. In Alaska, he toured the Poker Flat Research Range and the Alaska Satellite Facility at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where a Space Grant science fair featured research in hibernation biology and CubeSat technology.

In North Dakota, Space Grant-funded research at the University of North Dakota included projects on supercell mergers using satellite imagery, aurora borealis geomagnetic conditions and in-situ resource utilization. Students also demonstrated robotics and drone activities and showed lunar spacesuit design work. NASA said the tour will culminate in MAX POWER, a public showcase of air and space innovation on Nov. 7 and 8.