My NASA Story So Far

Back in November as I was figuring out loose plans for my month of blogging, several Instagram friends offered suggestions for post topics! One person said she’d love to hear about working for NASA and I realized that while I’ve written quite a bit about my various jobs over the years, it might be nice to have it mostly collected in one place. So here we go!

First, some context: NASA has several centers located around the country, and I have spent my entire adult career at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. JSC is the primary location for most human spaceflight activities — Mission Control is here, all of the astronauts are based here, and most of the major programs (like the International Space Station) are located here. Some of the other well-known centers are the Jet Propulsion Lab in the Los Angeles area (which runs many of NASA’s unmanned spacecraft like Mars Curiosity) and the Kennedy Space Center on the east coast of Florida (which is the primary launch for NASA and pretty much any other US entity or company that launches anything).

I am a civil servant, which means I work directly for the federal government. There are several thousand civil servants at NASA, and many (MANY) more who work for NASA via government contractors. Getting a civil servant job can be difficult because there aren’t as many spots and government hiring practices can be convoluted, so working for a contractor is often a great way to get a foot in the door. Whenever people ask me how to get a job at NASA, I make sure to point this out — there are a lot of opportunities out there!

I became interested in NASA when I was in high school, and started working at JSC here in Houston as a college sophomore in 1997 when I was hired into the cooperative education program — I wrote more about that story 8 years ago when the shuttle program ended. (The space bug bit me relatively late compared to a lot of NASA engineers. I wasn’t space crazy when I was smaller, although I did have the amazing space shuttle t-shirt you see me wearing as a 4-year-old in the photo above.)

I have two degrees in aerospace engineering: a bachelor’s from Georgia Tech and a Master’s from Stanford. When I finished grad school in mid-2002, I transitioned to full-time employment. I started as a trajectory analyst, and our work took an unexpected turn in February 2003 when space shuttle Columbia broke apart on its way home from a 2+ week mission. For the next several months, my coworkers and I combed through data and ran thousands of simulations to help ground teams with the debris recovery effort that was crucial to figuring out what went wrong. It was a grueling time, but also one of the most worthwhile things I’ve done.

In 2006, I moved from analysis to operations after being selected to be a flight controller in Mission Control for the space shuttle! I worked as a flight controller until the space shuttle program ended in 2011. For better or worse, this is definitely the most “glamorous” job I’ve had. Not coincidentally, it’s also the easiest to explain since most people have at least a high level concept of what Mission Control is!

• Mission Control – This post talks about the 3 different flight control positions I worked during the last 6 years of the space shuttle program.
  • Showtime, aka Rendezvous Day – I wrote this post after the successful STS-129 rendezvous. STS-129 was one of two flights where I was the “lead” rendezvous flight controller.
  • STS-133 Rendezvous – Another similar post about STS-133, my second flight as lead.
• STS-134 Flight Controller Interview – This is an interview I did on NASA TV during the second-to-last shuttle mission in 2011.
• STS-130, Take 2: Success! – Before the shuttle program ended, Jose and I drove to Florida, where we met up with my family to watch the launch of STS-130. I was able to see 3 shuttle launches in my life, and they were all spectacular.
  • STS-130 Launch Photos
• STS-117 Launch – This was my first flight as a flight controller!

In 2010, as the shuttle program was winding down, I took a part-time rotation in the operations safety group for the International Space Station. I wasn’t sure whether I would like it — the Safety and Mission Assurance organization is notoriously (and unfairly, I’d add) maligned for being stodgy and difficult. But I loved it. And the job I had from 2010-2015 arguably represents my best work. I enjoyed my role, and I was really good at it.

• Women@NASA – I did an interview with the Women@NASA initiative in 2015 and talked more about my job as Russian vehicle lead for safety, as well as working with the Chief Safety Officer for the space station.
• Failure to Launch – Being the Russian vehicle lead meant supporting the multiple missions per year that they launch to the ISS…and helping with the ensuing investigations when things didn’t go as planned on a couple occasions.
• Back to Earth – Some great photos and thoughts from a Soyuz landing in 2011.

In 2015, I became the lead for the operations safety team that I’d been part of for the previous 5 years. My responsibilities shifted, but I enjoyed this job a lot — I had a great team, and we got to work on all the different activities planned for the ISS, and all of the different vehicles that fly to and from the station.

Technically, I’m still in that role — but in reality, I’ve been in the middle of another transition for the last few months. At the end of December, I will officially transfer out of my old job into the new role that I’ve been doing for a couple months now. I’m acting (with the intent of making it permanent) as the Chief Safety Officer for the new lunar Gateway program. We’re developing a small space station that will orbit the moon and serve as a hub for missions to and from the surface of the moon, and hopefully someday to Mars.

The Gateway program is still very much in the formulation and design stage, which is a TOTALLY different world than I’ve ever previously dealt with. To be honest, I’ve spent the past several months fighting some pretty severe imposter syndrome and feeling like I suck at my job….

But! I’ve been here before and choose (and regularly remind myself to choose) to trust that it is temporary.

Here are a few other miscellaneous but fun NASA-related posts:

• James Webb Space Telescope – Jose and I got to see this in December 2017 when it came to JSC for thermal vacuum testing!
• Lovely Endeavour – A post about my favorite space shuttle, written in 2012 and featuring a 6-week-old Emma!
• Defying Gravity – For several years, I volunteered as a mentor for NASA’s Reduced Gravity Education Flight Program and got to fly with my teams on the Vomit Comet.

So! That’s my 20+ NASA career so far in a nutshell. I’d be happy to answer additional questions in the future so feel free to leave a comment!

(p.s. Jose also worked at NASA until this past summer, when he left to take a job at a small local aerospace company. We met at work in 2005 and got married in 2009.)

p.s. I’m doing a 31 day blogging challenge.