Does anyone here work with NASA?

Question

I have a dream to work there. How can I get there? What collage should I go to? Is it a nice place to work?

Answer 1

I worked there for 26 years but was let go for putting a potato in the exhaust pipe of the last shuttle launch rocket. They dont have much of a sense of humor down there.

Answer 2

I'd recommend studying engineering or science in school. Aerospace engineering is most applicable, but nearly any technical field has some application to the space program.

There are NASA centers all over the country (Texas, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Alabama, etc.), and each specializes in a different mission. Working at one organization may be a different experience than working at another. Some oversee launches, while others do research and development or test new aircraft designs.

One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of the technical work done by the government is outsourced to private contractors and the contracts overseen by government employees. So building a new satellite or aircraft might be handled by Lockheed Martin or Boeing, with NASA civil servants sometimes overseeing the work rather than performing it directly. So think about the type of work you'd like to do and also keep in mind getting a job with the private contractors that work with NASA to accomplish their mission.

I studied aero engineering at Purdue, which has graduated a lot of astronauts. It's a challenging program, but I'm glad I did it. Other schools with strong aero engineering programs include University of Michigan, University of Illinois, MIT, Caltech, Penn State, Univesity of Illinois, Ohio State, and many more. You might also check out a school's co-op program, which lets you gain experience working in industry for some semesters and studying on campus during others.

Good luck, and I wish you all the best in your studies and your career!

Answer 3

I know a bunch of people who worked there. They all left because they did not like it. I had some exposure to NASA and contractors myself and it was not a pleasurable experience. It never felt I was dealing with high tech and it always felt like I was dealing with snobby stonewalling bureaucrats who cared first and foremost about one thing: that whatever went wrong in the project would never touch them or their job security. I had a strong suspicion that one or two were even openly willing to let things fail in a way that would create difficult situations for others. Or those people were just as stupid as a slab of concrete. I can't tell.

Looking at the Shuttle disaster (the whole project, not just the two lost vehicles) and the ISS tax payer aerospace pork program, I can't but believe that my impression/experience is not particularly unique.

The one and only hope I see at NASA is JPL... their planetary research program is second to none. But that's it. Take JPL out and NASA is a third rate tax financed sinkhole.

But you have to make your own experiences. Go study whatever you like, then try to get into whatever program looks interesting. A dirty experience or two in life will not do you any harm. If you happen to get into a good place inside a bad place, call yourself lucky and stick with it. If you have to work with the wrong people and you are unhappy, you can always leave and do something else.

Good Luck!

Answer 4

I've submitted papers in response to NASA's call for proposals. I've asked for funding to build restaurants on the moon and they didn't give me the grant money. Instead they gave away millions of $ to other non-deserving projects that sounded scientific but were in fact just a bunch of scientific gibberish that used a lot of scientific lingo which accomplished nothing. 235 moons are in our very own backyard, yet they haven't figured out how to exploit even one of them. At $131 million per blast off, what has NASA accomplished? Folks, demand accountability because obviously the GAO can't account for anything.

NASA is no longer the entity President John F. Kennedy established originally in 1960. It has become a huge bureacratic dinosaur. Instead of building settlements on the moons it has discovered, or even just HAULING WATER, equipment and supplies to these moons, it just beams back images of galaxies that are way beyond our reach. NASA has to develop a pragmatic approach to building habitable environments for humans. What do they have to show for all the tax dollars we pay? Why did it cost Billions to build the space station?? Mars and the Moon should have been fully developed for human habitation by now. If NASA can't do the job, then they'd better hire the engineers and physicists who can do the job. Bureacrats and administrators are not scientists and engineers. Build atmospheres or else. Sh**t or get off the pot. We don't want to see fancy galactic images beamed back from million $ satellites, we want results. We want to live on the moons.

Answer 5

NASA hires astronomers, physicists, engineers, computer scientists, and a lot of other people. Figure out which field you're most interested in, and check out the NASA job site (you can get there from http://www.nasa.gov ) to find out what qualifications they are asking for in applicants. Do you want to be a research scientist? You'll need a PhD. Do you want to program satellites? You'll probably need a masters. Do you want to build missions? You can probably get away with a 4-year degree.

Frankly, I've known several people who worked for NASA, and none of them liked it very much. They worked at high-security centers, so they always had to wear a badge, dress up, sign in, etc. They were astronomers - at a university or national lab, you show up when you feel like it and wear what you want. They liked that better.

Answer 6

I was amazed to find out that the current administrator, Michael Griffin, has 7 degrees in various engineering/science disciplines. Maybe he'll be the one to implement a program to haul water to the moon and Mars. In the past NASA has spent countless millions looking for water on other planets/moons. I'm fully convinced it's just a matter of hauling bottled water there on a regular basis, obviously there's too much water on Earth from hydrocarbon combustion, this is a no-brainer: water vapor and co2 are the byproducts of hydrocarbon combustion (fuels).

NASA should also be looking into Superconducting Magnets to build atmospheres on the 169 moons they've discovered in our very own backyard, the Solar System. Our Milky Way Galaxy has cannabilized other smaller galaxies, leading to a total of 235+ planetary bodies/moons. It's a free for all land grab guys. It's as simple as drilling a shaft down the center of the globe and inserting a 4 to 14 Tesla Superconducting Ring, depending on how much iron/nickel is in the core. The superconducting magnetic ring is housed in a liquid helium tank and the current is said to "persist" forever in a superconducting state (persistent currents). A magnetometer is used to measure the magnetic field. If the field is 0.5 to 2.0 Gauss then it is a sustainable atmospheric bubble similar to Earth. Then it's just a matter of pumping in nitrogen, co2 and oxygen, in that order. Grow some grass and trees and voila!

I truly hope NASA quits spinning its wheels going nowhere. Robert Jastrow's book, Red Giants and White Dwarfs describes how our Sun's death will unfold. The Earth will be a giant heat sink, and all life will perish in a hellish, long, drawn out death. Unless we master the science of building atmospheres, all will be lost. The wildfires that are spontaneously flaring up in CA is just one omen of what is to follow, ad infinitum.

Answer 7

Hi drama -

Yes, I have worked with NASA (not directly for them) on several occasions over the years. My perception is that the operational space program end of the business is tough to get into, but is probably the most "romantic" career path within NASA. Most of NASA is not this at all. It involves running test and development projects on new technologies that may seem fairly obscure to a layman, but may be quite valuable to the contractors that team up with NASA to do the work. The contractors (like me) will generally attend several meetings with the NASA folks in order to share ideas and determine the best approach toward developing the technology in question. We will work out a test schedule and then work like crazy to support it. After the test, we will generally prepare reports that describe the results... then we will go use it at our own company (if it was successful) in our own project. Doesn't sound too romantic, but it really is in a quiet way. We get to do things that noone has done before, and apply them in the real world. The people I know at NASA are very sharp and very pleasant to work with - without exception. The facilities are generally average Civil Service type, with a little grime here and there in the test areas (grime and engineering go together). I do believe that many NASA jobs can be a little frustrating, in that they get to do the work, but they never see it through to the final product line. The contractors do that part. In that regard, they live in a bit of a fantasy world...they do a lot of the work on these joint projects, but it's only for the sake of advancing the technology, not for making anything that really flies. In a related sense, they are also deeply dependent on the whims of Congress in order to maintain their livelihood. In the glory days of the space program, this was not a serious issue. These days, a third of the people seem to think that we never got to the moon, and therefore have no interest in advancing the state of the art. So Congress responds to this part of the populace as a significant voting bloc, and funding for good programs gets cut.

My response may sound negative - it is not intended to be. I think working for NASA is a fascinating and honorable profession. Like any serious career, it is whatever you make it to be. If you decide it's terrific, it will be terrific. If you decide it stinks, then you probably should have understood it better before you signed up. The same is true of any career that you choose.

Most NASA scientists that I know are engineers, who came from a disciplined engineering education. There is a wide spectrum of schools that offer such an experience, and you do not have to limit your choice to the aerospace engineering specialty. NASA hires plenty of folks in all technical fields that apply to aviation and space travel, including mechanical, electrical, chemical, materials, etc etc. Pick one you like and run with it. Once you are well grounded technically, then look at NASA again. If it still looks attractive to you, then I would bet that you will find a good career there. Best of luck.

Answer 8

nope i don't work there but would love to work there someday as well

first of all you'd need to be more than a straight A student and have multiple degrees in things like mechanical engineering, computer engineering, physics, and astronomy

Cal State Berkeley is a good school to go to

Stanford as well

it should be a good place to work because they are funded directly by the government

best of luck maybe i'll someday you'll achieve your dream through hard work :)

Answer 9

I wish I did sometimes. I had just the same kind of dreams as U back when I was growing up as a kid. But I was proven too dumb in the end to work at NASA as it was,so I tried Rock & Roll for a while,but even that proved to be too much for me as well.

Answer 10

nasa employees usually don't spend their time on YA.
they've probably got better things to do

like drive from houston to florida in a diaper and attempt to abduct and murder people.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250415,00.html

sorry, I couldn't resist. Good luck Lisa!