When I was a co-op,

When I was a co-op, awards were given out at the end of every semester for good performance. You had to be nominated by your mentor, and out of six co-op tours, I only got one award; it was from the group I now work for full-time. There are various reasons that I didn’t get more (mainly due to the timing differences between the normal co-op semester schedule and Georgia Tech’s adherance to the quarter system), and so it never bothered me very much. But I was always a little disappointed that I didn’t get a Flag Award.

There were two levels of co-op award. The higher one was a $500 bonus and a certificate; the lower was a certificate with a small American flag that had flown in space aboard the shuttle. The one award I got was the higher level, and while I appreciated the money greatly, it would have been cool to get a space-flown flag.

This afternoon in a casual awards presentation, all of my coworkers and I received a JSC Group Achievement Award for our work on the STS-107 Early Sightings Assessment Team. This is the team that investigated all the sighting reports, pictures, and video from Columbia’s reentry, and produced the debris footprints and searched the radar for falling debris.

In addition, most of us who had committed considerable time to the investigation received a Spaceflight Awareness Team Award. Today I finally got a flag! On my certificate is an “Endeavour” shuttle flag that flew on STS-113, the last mission before the accident. I also got a pin that flew on the same mission.

How cool!