my name is Alicia do is angelo and I'm
an aerospace engineer at the nestling
research center i'm originally from
northeast Nebraska and grew up on a
ranch I think I knew it about five years
old that this isn't the kind of job that
I wanted to do I remember being a kid in
the middle of nowhere so there was a
over 20 miles from the closest town so
there was no light pollution so the
thing that got me I think interested in
NASA was being able to go out every
night and look up at the stars and and
you really could confuse a lightning
bugs with satellites because you know
you could see everything you can see
moving across the sky so i think that
was my first interaction with you know
the the on wonder of space and what's
out there
I never really knew what I really like
to do but I also knew what I was good at
and I was really bad at spelling but i
really liked math and science and so I
took those classes and when I went to my
graduated from high school I decided to
go to college and the only real science
that I didn't require a whole lot of
spelling with physics and so I got into
that and I really liked it and did my
undergraduate in physics but about the
year between my junior and senior year
was nineteen ninety-seven and that was a
year that the mars pathfinder landed on
Mars very first rover that we never sent
to Mars and it was also the time when
the internet was becoming you know work
mainstream and people start having in
their houses and i was working at school
was going to summer school that summer
and so I had access to it and my friends
and I would follow it like how
fascinating is this to see over you know
on Mars and my friends like you know I
think you could do that
yeah i'm like no i don't know anybody
who works at me so you know they're all
in the movies and they're all and and
and he's like no no I think so we
started doing some online searches for
summer programs because i was going to
try to do an internship the following
summer and i found the summer program
internship here at NASA Langley and
through that program i learned about a
graduate program that was also at the
center and I applied and was accepted
and hence oh my very first job
task in that in the graduate program was
to put in orbit around Mars so let's
graduate students get to do that it's
pretty neat my first real job as after I
was hired as a civil servant was the
mars odyssey orbiter and we did a thing
part of the mission called aerobraking
where use the atmosphere to achieve a
science orbit so you gradually reduce it
from a highly elliptical to a circular
orbit the reason we use it is to save
propellant so you can only put so much
mass on a spacecraft is to launch and
send it to Mars and so when you have the
option of sending scientific instruments
or propulsion we usually want to
maximize the amount of sites that we can
do and so to do that I will take a small
amount of propellant and use it as soon
as we get to the planet and put it in a
very large elliptical orbit and then
what we'll do is once it's in that then
we'll do little tiny maneuvers that
don't use a very much propellant and and
lower the periapsis which is the closest
approach to the planet just a little bit
into the atmosphere so that we can use
the drag on the solar rays to slow it
down and then we were able to apply that
information that we learn from that
mission to the next one in 2005 was mars
reconnaissance orbiter and in-between
time they sent
the spirit opportunity Rovers to the
surface in 2004 and so I was part of the
team that worked on the entry descent
landing for that interested landing is
the phase of a of a Mars mission that
delivers the spacecraft from the top of
the atmosphere to the surface and
because Mars is so different than Earth
you can't land things like an airplane
and so we actually have different phases
of flight we have the entry portion
where you're going very fast and and
your spacecraft eats up a lot so you
need some kind of thermal protection
against that but then once it gets
through the heat pulse there's not
enough atmosphere to keep slowing it
down so then you need some other kind of
drag device and in the small robotic
missions we've been using parachutes but
as we get to two larger larger missions
we think we're going to have to come up
with some different ways to slow it down
in that in that particular rate region
of the atmosphere and then as you get
very close to the surface then you know
if you're just on a parachute you're
going way too fast to land so you
usually turn on engines to slow you down
so it's really a that's kind of a
three-phase process it's three very
distinct areas of research that have to
go into developing the systems that do
that
so now that I've spent a decade working
on robotic missions to Mars the next
thing we want to do is try to send
humans to Mars and so we know that to
send humans it's gonna take a lot more
stuff because humans require a lot more
stuff to live there and so we've landed
one metric ton with the Mars Curiosity
rover we think that to support a no
colonization of Mars for humans we're
going to have to learn things that are
on the order of like 20 metric reason we
use mass instead of weight is because
weight is different depending on where
you are in the solar system and so we
actually run into this problem a lot
with it with the engine folks who like
to measure thrust to weight of the
engine so the amount of thrust that
comes from the engines over the weight
of the whole vehicle is trying to land
and the problem is that all the engines
are designed and earth and earth geez
and we take them to Mars and they have
to operate in Margie's we all have to
just make sure that were that we define
the difference where if you're using
mass mass one kilogram is one kilogram
on earth and on Jupiter and on Mars and
so it helps us to all speak the same
language because we can convert wait
once we know where we're at but it's
really important to know what units
you're working in and so what we're
trying to do now is help NASA invest be
smart investors in what technologies
they should invest in so that we can
make that happen
the design process is very important and
that's why it took us about 10 years i
worked on the Curiosity rover about 10
years because
the portion that I work on is the
computer simulation portion where we
take all the models from aerodynamicists
and a parachute people the mass
properties of the actual rover we put in
a simulation and we have to guarantee to
you know like a ninety-nine percent when
you run at the 10,000 cases that 99% of
them will be successful and it will land
where you want to land and and and there
were lots of times when it didn't is
through the design process so we would
tell them well to make it land here
you're going to either need to add more
propellant or you'll need a bigger
parachute or and so then we start with
it's a it's a conversation we start
working with the the engineers building
it and the parachute people who are
building a parachute to try to make all
the pieces fit into a design that
actually works the things that we're
doing are not written in books and we
can't just go look up a solution
somewhere so it's a lot of trial and
error and it's just like when we used
the airbags for the mars exploration
rovers spirit and opportunity and we
tried to use that for curiosity and
we're finding that they were breaking
all time so we had to come up with a new
solution to land that Rover because the
way we did it before wasn't going to
work
so what we decided on was the sky crane
but there were lots of iterations that
took us to get to that point and we
didn't know even when we designed that
if it was going to work because we've
never actually flown anything like it
Mars so there's a lot of risk in trying
new things but we would have never been
able to do what we did if if we would
have been afraid to try and it just so
happened that you know I i ended up
coming to NASA at the beginning of a
decade of unprecedented mars exploration
where you know timing timing really was
everything in that and because of that I
got to participate in all the missions
that happened that decade with the
exception of one of the papal the
Phoenix lander was a competitive a
completed mission and so I competed
against it and so mine my lost and my
colleagues one so we're all happy for
them anyway but I and then I worked on
the
a curiosity introduced and landing team
and i'm currently working on the the
insight entry descent landing team so
and the Maven mission that's going on
now we're working on that too so so yeah
just you can't plan this it just it just
worked out my advice to to somebody in
middle school
it's advice i give my my own middle
schoolers have to at home is 21 find
what you love to do and and be really
good at it whatever you decide your
YouTube and know that it's okay to fail
because sometimes we learn more when we
when we do fail and that it's a process
that it you know we need to make
environments where it's okay to do that
because then you come back and evaluate
what did you learn in that as far as you
know doing what you're good at
sometimes is what you like to do and
sometimes it so but it helps if if what
you're good at is something that you
enjoy doing and I think maybe most of it
is just under is is just recognizing
yourself what you don't like it I didn't
know I wanted to work at NASA I just
knew that I didn't want to stay on the
on the farm and the ranch so you know
knowing and and being able to recognize
that in yourself i think is is a big
help so that when you do our are
presented with opportunities then then
you can take the ones that that feel
right and it right with you what i love
about my job is being able to go out it
and talk to you know university students
and and just the public and let them
know that you know we really are working
on these things we get paid to do really
cool stuff and and that they can do it
too it's not something that you know you
have to have this gene you're born to
work here no it's everybody everybody
finds what they what they love to do and
we do need people to help us all these
problems
history but the only person around it
doesn't have TV coverage of the face and
then he got the black up now you're
gonna feel better in the TV picture now
they are gay
you're working out
I want all
