You can be a rocket scientist, NASA scientist says
Anyone can be a rocket scientist.
Or at least, that is what National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) engineering scientist John Glass says
Starting out as a teacher, he then put shingles in people’s roofs in the United States before moving onto pyrotechnics, ejection and missile systems.
But for the past 11 years, his job has been to make sure rockets are ready to launch with NASA.
Glass planned to speak at Cannington School and to the Women’s Independent Discussion Group while he was in South Canterbury visiting his family later this week.
He hoped to fuel people’s passion for the unique industry and teach students anything was possible.
‘‘How many people say they want to be a rocket scientist when they’re young,’’ Glass said.
Checking rockets meant he started walking down from the nose of the rocket, checking everything is installed correctly, until he reached the bottom nozzles.
‘‘You only get one shot with a rocket,’’ Glass said.
Launching rockets were the highlights of his career, but he felt honoured to be asked to talk about his experiences to different groups.
His words have already inspired a young boy in first grade back in the United States to become an astronaut, who asked to be penpals with Glass after meeting him.
While it was a small field, he reminded people he was brought up in Tasmania but now looked after rockets which jetted to the stars and other planets.
‘‘It’s something I never thought I would experience.’’
It was surreal to be sitting on top of a 30 storeys high rocket looking out to the ocean, he said. ‘‘It was so quiet.’’
He was excited for the Space Launch System, ‘‘the mother of all rockets’’, to have its first launch in 2018.
Two years later, it would be boarded by astronauts.
Since leaving Australia with a ‘‘Californian beauty’’ many years ago, he helped write a rocket design criteria and was awarded a lifetime achievement award in the field of pyrotechnics.
Despite his years working with rockets, they did still occasionally surprise him.
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and the Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) NASA mission was one of those occasions.
They were launched separately, with the first landing in a moon crater, stirring up the dust.
Two seconds later, the second satellite arrived and started analysing the dust. ‘‘It boggles my mind.’’