janne-at-arcusys

Charlie: What I recommend to students or early career employees looking to distinguish themselves and be hired by either NASA or another aerospace company is to try to get as much real world experience as possible. One way for students is by applying for and conducting internships within the organization they would like to work. Some universities offer Co-Op programs where the students can work for one semester each year with say NASA and each one of those tours they would work in a different branch of the organization. Their last work assignment they can choose where they would like to work. The thing that helped me get hired by NASA was the fact that I was able to have a 2-3 month internship with NASA LaRC the summer between my junior and senior years at Brooklyn Polytech.

The Epic Challenge program we are currently running would enable students to acquire necessary skills and have those skills be evaluated by NASA and industry as part of their Capstone program

Janne: We want to open the virtual environment in the future for anyone interested in the space exploration. I think there is a lot of people (ie. in Reddit r/space or r/KerbalSpaceProgram ) that are excited about space exploration and related fields, but don't have good outlets how to participate, or learn more. Platform will contain lessons from top subject matter experts which you're able to take. On the first step it's going to be available only for selected students from post grad, undergrad and high school level.

We definitely hit a very large vulture during takeoff right when we cleared the tower (we were traveling at approximately 100 mph) and it had fallen over the other side of the vehicle and struck the forward windows we may have been the first Return to Launch Sight (RTLS) abort in the history of the Shuttle program. A maneuver which is very, very dangerous.

We also lost a very large piece of foam from the Protuberance Air Loads (PAL) Ramp, however, this did not strike our vehicle. If it did it would have caused significant damage which we may or may not have been able to repair depending on its size. We did design a repair kit for the wing leading edges, however, if the damage was too severe we may or may not have been able to effect a suitable repair.

Another anomaly which we experienced was two small "gapfillers" were protruding from the bottom of the vehicle near the nose. We had to conduct an emergency spacewalk (EVA) to remove the protruding gapfillers. If we did not, the flow would have caused vortices which would have impinged on our wing leading edges during entry and would have caused catastrophic damage. If the good engineers at NASA LaRC (Scott Berry, Peter Gnoffo, and Tom Hirvath) did not make the correct call we would not have survived entry and the US Space Program would most likely have been cancelled!

Janne: This is something we hope to accomplish with the virtual platform. While you're already working, you could use spare time to go through further education and classes towards credentials, which you might need in order for your application to stand out. For example here in Finland we have structural unemployment. In Nokia's wake there is a lot of IT / Tech people unemployed who need further training in order to get a job in the industry.

Charlie: I think it is fantastic that commercial companies are creating opportunity for investors to create markets for space which will serve to increase the number of people who travel in space, a diversity of ideas to overcome some to the challenges (e.g., Space-X exploring reusable boosters, and entrepreneurs exploring ways to market space to help offset the costs of space travel. In the early 70's we had dozens of aeronautics/aerospace companies which all contributed to a diverse market and creativity which helped the United States maintain leadership in this sector and helped our economy. It is all good for the future of space exploration!