Joshua Santora: Sometimes history inspires us.

John F. Kennedy: I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.

Joshua Santora: Sometimes we find ourselves in the middle of history being made.

Jim Bridenstine: The next American man and the first woman ever will be Americans on the surface of the moon within five years.

Launch Countdown Sequence: EGS Program chief engineer verifying no constraints to launch. Three, two, one, and lift off. Welcome to space.

Joshua Santora: Now we are in the middle of the most aggressive push for the moon since we landed there the first time 50 years ago. Leading the charge is the first female Launch Director, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson. Last year, we had a chance to sit down with her and discuss her role as the Artemis launch director. She and her right-hand woman, Jessica Parsons, took a few minutes out of their incredibly busy schedule to share some unique perspectives.

All right, I’m here in the booth now with Charlie Blackwell-Thompson and Jessica Parsons. Ladies, thanks for joining me today.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Oh, we’re happy to be here.

Jessica Parsons: Thanks for having us.

Joshua Santora: Absolutely, so I want to let you all introduce yourselves. So tell us a little bit about what your role is for NASA and Exploration Ground Systems and kind of how you got where you are just real briefly.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Okay, well, Jess, you want me to go first or…?

Jessica Parsons: Sure.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Okay, well, I’m Charlie Blackwell-Thompson. I am the Launch Director. So I think I have a pretty-

Joshua Santora: Hold on…Launch Director…that’s a pretty awesome title. So I’m assuming that means really the buck stops with you when it comes to launch day.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: That’s a pretty fair assessment, I would say. It’s a fantastic job! I think a lot of folks think about day of launch when you think about the launch director, right…the one that gives that final “Go” to the team to proceed into terminal count. But our days are really filled now with getting ready for that launch…in planning the launch countdown, the procedures, and getting our team ready to go. So there’s a tremendous amount of work that goes into or precedes that actual day of launch. But no doubt about it, I have an absolutely fantastic job. I get to work with an incredible group of people.

Joshua Santora: I obviously cut you off, so I want to let you continue. Kind of tell us, how did you get to be the Launch Director?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Well, let’s see, I came to Kennedy Space Center 30 years ago right out of school, right out of Clemson University…so go Tigers! I had a tour of Firing Room 1. As part of that, it was interview over in the payload side of the house. It was actually in their flight software area. So I toured through Firing Room 1, and I heard the team that was actually getting Space Shuttle Discovery ready for return to flight. They were in there working, and they were testing out the flight hardware. I was really struck when I walked through the room with wanting to be a part of that team. So I was lucky enough to get selected for that job. So I started my career in payloads. Thought I had the most fantastic job in the entire world. I got to work on planetary spacecraft. I got to work on the International Space Station. I got to work on the Hubble Space Telescope. So here I am, a country girl from South Carolina, and I get this amazing opportunity. Then when the Shuttle Program ended, I had an opportunity to take some of that experience I had on the launch side of things and move over to Exploration Ground Systems and help them with their launch planning…which eventually led to the role of the Launch Director.

Joshua Santora: Amazing…and for those that don’t know, the Firing Room that you toured is now where you will be conducting a team to launch SLS here hopefully next year.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Yes, it is not lost on me at all. When I walk in that room…and I’m in there multiple times a week…when I walk in the room, I have that same feeling I had 30 years ago. It is that I want to be a part of this team. I want to be a part of this team that’s getting our ground systems ready for the flight hardware, and a part of the team that is going to return to the moon in five years. I mean, how exciting is that?

Joshua Santora: Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. We will talk more about that in a minute. Jessica, I want to make sure you get a chance to introduce yourself. Is it fair to say that you’re kind of playing right hand to Charlie? Is that an accurate assessment?

Jessica Parsons: Yeah, I would say that. I am Charlie’s Technical Assistant. This is a new role, I think, both for her and for me. Let’s see, I’ll give you a little of my background. I grew up…and I can remember probably when I was five years old, I was like, “I want to work for NASA.” That was my dream. I had my career set in mind since I was a little kid. So what I did in high school actually was I talked to my career counselor and I said, “Well, what career will get me to work for NASA?” They were like, well, maybe an engineer field. So I started looking at different…there was like aerospace engineer. I’m like, well, that one has the “space” word in it. I’m going for it. I will tell you something a lot of people probably don’t know, but I didn’t speak English till I was 15. So I found myself a different language, and I went to a college education just because I wanted to pursue my dream to work for NASA.

Joshua Santora: That’s awesome.

Jessica Parsons: So that’s the advice I would give not only the little girls or girls or anybody…just follow your dreams. Doing that is what has gotten me where I am today…just never giving up, following every obstacle, following through, giving my best every time. I think whatever they want to achieve, they will get there. I will say that I’m working for Charlie kind of by luck. She needed some help doing some technical integrations for aspects that were related to launch. I had worked for her doing an assignment, and she said, “Oh, it’s some help I kind of need in this area.” Then that ended up turning into a more full-time job, and I’ve been doing this for probably the last year now. I will tell you, it’s a job that I love. I never thought in my career that I was going to be support in the Firing Room. We had our first, like, cryo sim demo. When we had that I was like…I sat in the Firing Room, I listened to the team. I was just there kind of listening my first time going through a countdown of what it would be…a demo of our countdown. I was like, wow, this is what I want to do. I want to be part o f this team. Since then, I think, I haven’t looked back.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: She doesn’t give herself, I would say, full credit, right? Jess is responsible for many of the technical aspects and the technical integration of our launch countdown. So she leads a lot of different studies, a lot of different trades that we do. When we look at our requirements for launch, she leads that effort for me in terms of the evaluation of those requirements and kind of how they fit into our planning. So she is very much key to everything that we’re doing on the launch planning side of things.

Joshua Santora: So kind of a pair of questions. Number one, is it nerve-wracking to try and design all this without having the actual hardware here? Number two, is it normal? Is that what happens for every space vehicle and rocket and mission?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Well, I think it is normal. I’m going to take, I’ll say, the easier part of that first. I think is normal. If you look across the suite of launch vehicles with NASA and Commercial, and I’ll go back in my background to early ISS when we were designing the ground systems to support the flight elements that would come. So I think that is normal. But the exciting part is when you get the flight hardware here and you begin to integrate the flight hardware with the ground systems. You begin to power up those flight elements, and they come to life. You see what sort of challenges they may throw at you…things that you’ve got to go work to resolve. To me, that’s the…I’ll say the fun part (laughing). So we definitely look forward to getting that flight hardware here at KSC.

Joshua Santora: Once we get hardware here, once we check it out, we know we’re in good shape, it’s time to get ready for a launch. Launch countdown is where I believe your jobs really kind of…that’s where it all culminates, is in that countdown. I’ve looked over some shoulders; I’ve seen some of these manuals. How big is the countdown script? Because there’s actually a script that you guys use. How big is that?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Well, that’s a hard one to answer just yet because it’s still being developed, right? So we’re still working on it. What I can tell you is…and it won’t be as big as what we had in Shuttle. In Shuttle, we had six volumes of launch countdown. When I say a volume, it occupied a multi-inch binder because it was all paper. So we had six volumes that defined launch countdown. Now when I say that, it wasn’t six volumes of every step we’re going to go do. It was a couple of volumes of every step we’re going to go do. It was a volume that said this is what we do when we scrub, and this is how we turn the vehicle around. We had another for any kind of issues that arose. So we had what we call “pre-planned contingency procedures,” where if you had an LCC exceedance, you could go run these and hopefully get to a point where you could go launch. We will have something similar. It won’t be nearly as big. In terms of page count, it’s hard to say right now because it’s still in work; and it’s also electronic. So it’s different than what we had. It’s not quite as visible in terms of the volumes…you know, it takes up a bookshelf. It’s not quite like that. It will be hundreds of equivalent pages when we’re all done.

Joshua Santora: Jess, do you think you’ll ever get to a point where you feel like you know the countdown… like where you’ve been through the book…

Jessica Parsons: (laughing) It is my expectation.

Joshua Santora:…You really feel like I know this countdown? Obviously, the book is there to make sure every step is right, but can you get there on like this massive process?

Jessica Parsons: I think so. I mean, I think I have to; otherwise she’ll fire me (laughing). No, but I think it’s partly linked to the process. We’re reviewing the requirements a year, two years, in advance prior to the launch. So I’ll be able to become familiar with, okay, what is supposed to happen? What is needed in order to support this requirement? What is the timing of it? We also have the process where we do a lot of simulations to train our launch team. I think being part of those really helps us walk through that launch countdown and make sure that every day we become a lot more familiar with it.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: And I would say from my experience on Shuttle, I didn’t know the entire book…because you really do depend on your team to know their particular steps.

Joshua Santora: Yeah.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: But what you do know is how all of that work fits together and kind of what you have to do…kind of what you have to do first, what you have to do second, what drives what…kind of the puts and takes of launch countdown. Those things that are critical, you absolutely know. I can remember in Shuttle…and we’ll have similar steps for this vehicle. I can remember in Shuttle, we had…as you got down late into launch countdown, you had a series of steps that in the event that you had an engine that got shut down or you ended up having a cutoff on the pad, you always had your fingers sleeved into those contingency steps because you knew that you’re going to run those steps. And you’re going to run them quickly. I can tell you even now, it’s been years since our last shuttle launch, and I can still run through those first few steps from memory because, like Jess said, you practiced them in a sim. It was something that was a part of every single sim. You knew that they were time-critical steps, and they needed to be executed as such. So I would imagine that everybody on our team will have those areas that are most important and most critical for them, and they will absolutely know that countdown. There’s not a doubt in my mind. So when you were asking Jess that question, I was shaking my head because I’m thinking I know everybody’s going to know that.

Joshua Santora: How much of that is the way that you operate…as far as like, are you drilling your team? Do you have drills? What are these sims like to get people ready to be prepared for that?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Well, “drill” is kind of a tough word.

Joshua Santora: I don’t know your style…I’m just asking the question.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: I would say that…what is the style? I mean, we certainly have an expectation of excellence within our team. I would say that’s for all of us, myself included. We definitely practice. We’re at the beginning of our sim planning and at the beginning of our sim regime. So my expectation is different today than it will be six months from now.

Joshua Santora: Sure.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: But that’s the reason we go through these…is so that by the time we get to launch, those challenges, those technical problems that can come up, those critical situations where you need to execute very quickly and very decisively, our team has had an opportunity to practice those and practice them and practice them again.

Joshua Santora: Thinking about the fact that this is a team that make all this happen, we know that it takes an army from design through construction through delivery through preparation. How big of a team are we talking about on launch day?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: We will have folks in Mission Control as part of the team there.

Joshua Santora: In Houston?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: In Houston.

Joshua Santora: Okay.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: We also will have folks that are in the Orion…their engineering team that sits in the Orion Mer. We have a team of SLS, the SLS Engineering Support Team, that sits in the SESC, which is a part of the HOSC at Marshall. Then we have our team here. So asking how big is our team…it’s always a tough one for me because I know how many people sit in the Firing Room. We have just under 100 folks that will sit in Firing Room 1. Then we have a Support Launch Team of folks that’s about 60. So really, between the two rooms, we’re about 150 folks. So that’s an easy question to go answer. But for me, I believe that everyone that develops this hardware, everyone that tests this hardware, everyone that gets us to launch, is part of our launch team. Whether they’re sitting in a firing room or in an engineering support center on launch day, they are part of the effort that got us to that day. And they’re part of the launch team, regardless of where they are. But to answer your question, about 150 folks between the two firing rooms.

Joshua Santora: Jessica, I’ll start with you. Not knowing the exact situation, how long is this countdown? How far out from zero do we really feel like, hey, it’s launch day? Like, how far away are we?

Jessica Parsons: Well, I would say our launch countdown starts two days prior to that T-Zero time frame. There’s a lot of preparations that have to go down. Like Charlie said, we have to power up the vehicle. We have to do multiple checks…and, again, they’re all driven by requirements. Then we have to start the vehicle cryo loading. That event happens…we have to check whether the weather is going to support. There’s a lot of different factors that have to be taken into account. The decision if we’re going to go ahead and yank the vehicle is done somewhere around like seven hours prior to the T-Zero time frame. And takes a while. We have a large vehicle…to put it simple terms.

Joshua Santora: Sure.

Jessica Parsons: So we have to balance the commodities that go between the core stage and the ICPS, the upper stage of the vehicle. At that point, that takes probably the majority of that last seven hours of it. We have to monitor our ground systems, monitor the vehicle, to make sure that everything is going as planned. So I would say those last two days are definitely what we consider to be the launch countdown. I know I put it in simplistic terms for something that is-

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Our countdown is just under two days. Jess covered it well. I was sitting here thinking when you were asking the question about when does it feel like launch. Countdown two days prior…that’s our call to stations. I think it will feel like launch when we roll to the pad because we know that when we roll out of the VAB that we have some work to do at the pad prior, but that is our commitment toward that launch date and that season that we have, where we have several days in which we can go launch. So I think that final rollout is going to be an amazing event.

Joshua Santora: Thinking about the countdown again, is this two days around-the-clock work; or is this two days like on-shift time?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: It is two days around the clock. It will be three shifts a day.

Joshua Santora: Whoo!

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Yep…oh, it’s going to be great!

Joshua Santora: Are you having 100 people like per shift in the firing room ready to go, or is this just like certain teams have to be there?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Yeah, just certain teams. What happens is that it’s really based on the work that has to get done. So we have something we call a bar chart, which lays out sequentially the work that is accomplished in launch countdown. So the personnel in the room kind of come and go during, I’d say, that first day of launch countdown. By once we get ready for cryo load, the room’s pretty full and it will remain that way through T-Zero. Certainly that first day, it depends on the work that we have. There are positions…like the test directors are always in the room, the integration console is always manned. But the other consoles are staffed based on the work that they have to do.

Joshua Santora: As the Launch Director, I’m assuming that there’s going to be part of you that will want to be present for 48 hours straight. That’s probably an unwise decision, all things considered. So have you thought through like how to break apart your time during those two days?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Yes, I actually have started to think about that. I haven’t gotten to the final answer yet. Luckily for me, I have great support. So I’ll have to figure out those – from tanking on, I’ll definitely be there continuously. In that first day, I’m really, really blessed because I have a really strong – our program has a really strong test management group…the NASA Test Directors, as well as the TOSC test conductors. They execute that launch countdown on behalf of the launch director. So they are staffed around the clock. They’re there all the time, and they really serve during launch as the eyes and ears of the launch director. So if there’s something that they believe that I need to know, they certainly reach out. I check in with them regularly on that first day of launch countdown. Then Jess will be involved as well, and she’ll have some shifts where she’ll be in the Firing Room kind of doing that same thing…their issues…and letting me know. But I have started to think about that. I haven’t laid it out as to which shift or which time period, but definitely from taking down continuous. Then prior to that, there will be shifts that I’ll be in the Firing Room and then some where I’ll depend on the test directors or my assistant launch director or Jess, as the technical assistant, to help with that.

Joshua Santora: I would be remiss if I didn’t make a special point to say that you are NASA’s first female Launch Director, which has got to feel like a huge honor. I was actually talking with somebody…are you the first female launch director period? Because I did a little bit of homework and couldn’t find anybody else…so, first female Launch Director on earth. Is that accurate?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: I don’t know about on earth. I would say the first one for NASA.

Joshua Santora: Okay, we know that’s true…no question about it.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: I don’t know if it’s bigger than that.

Joshua Santora: So when you got assigned – I guess the question is, first, like how does that happen? Is that like you get appointed to that? Did you apply for this job? Like how does this transpire?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: There was an announcement and I applied for it and interviewed for it and was selected. So that part of it is kind of, I would say, the normal process of like many of us got our jobs. So it wasn’t like an appointed thing. It was an announcement came out, and I applied. I’ll never forget when I got the phone call though. That’s when it really kind of became, I would say, real.

Joshua Santora: Is that like a holy smokes moment? You’re like…wait a second, I gotta go launch a rocket now.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: I’ll tell you…I was actually walking across to a meeting. At the time, my office was in the ONC. I was actually walking to a meeting over in headquarters and my phone rang and I looked down and it said Bob Cabana.

Joshua Santora: He’s our Center Director.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Right, and so I said…I wonder why Mr. Cabana’s calling me.

Joshua Santora: Either a good thing or a bad thing probably.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: So he offered me the job. My interview had been several days before, and he offered me the job. When he first said it, I remember saying, “Bob, can you repeat that? I just want to make sure I heard you correctly.” He repeated it, and then it was the moment of…wow, what a great opportunity and what an honor!

Joshua Santora: Awesome…yeah, congrats again on that. I know that it’s been a while since that happened, but I’m sure it’s still kind of – and I’m sure it won’t fully set in until you see the rocket leave the pad. Then it’s like…man, that just happened.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Yep, absolutely…definitely looking forward, definitely looking forward to that launch day. But I will say, I am extremely blessed in this role and I do feel honored. I am also very blessed to have the team that I have because I think as a launch director, you’re as good or you’re as effective as the folks on your team. I have an incredible, dedicated team that is working toward launch and making sure that we’re taking all the right steps and that we’re working our products and that we’re getting launch countdown ready, and Sulphur is coming along, and all of our progress and our sims and just all of that. It’s a lot of work, and I’m really blessed to have such a great team.

Joshua Santora: I know that you’re probably so focused that this question might seem like a foreign concept, but is this the final career stop? Is there somewhere to go past this? Like, is there more career wise; or is this like, I’m good here…I can just hang out till I retire?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: That’s a tough one. Let’s see…let me think about that for a second. So I think about it like this. A couple of summers ago, I went to Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon. Every place we went, I thought…This is the most beautiful place in the world. And the next day, there was another most beautiful place in the world. And each of those, you stopped for a moment and kind of took that in. So I think all of our careers…it’s a path, right? It’s a path and it’s a journey. Every job that I’ve had, I’ve taken that moment…kind of like those different destinations within a national park, where you say, “This is an incredible opportunity; this is a wonderful place, and I could stay here for a long time.” And then something else came along. When I was working in payloads, I felt that way. When I had an opportunity to go to the Test Director Office, I felt like it’s time to continue that journey. I absolutely right now cannot imagine a job more appealing than the one that I have. Like, I love what I do. I love the people I work with. I can’t wait to see that vehicle out on the pad. So for me, it’s hard to think beyond that. But I never want to say, “Nope, this is it,” because you never know what life has in store. If I had stopped at some of those other locations and decided not to take that path to the next one, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t get this opportunity. So I don’t like to say, “Nope, there’s nothing else after this.” But I will tell you, it is hard to imagine a job better than the one that I have.

Joshua Santora: Sure.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: And there is no other job right now that I would want.

Joshua Santora: Cool. Jess, any interest in becoming a launch director someday?

Jessica Parsons: No, I’ve told her that level of responsibility she has in that job…I don’t know if I could deal with it. I am just glad to be part of her team and be supporting her. Like I said, I don’t know where my career would lead. Like Charlie, I’ve taken different roads that led me to a different place. I never really had a plain career path that I said, “Yes, I’m going to be supporting the EM-1 launch team.” And yet, here I am. So I’m just honored to be working side by side with Charlie and being part of that EM-1 launch team.

Joshua Santora: Fantastic. We’re going to the moon. We need to not forget our destination here. We’re not just launching a rocket. We’re going somewhere. We’re going to the moon. The president has given us a charge to be boots on the moon 2024, five years from now. That road appears to run through the Space Launch System, which means that it runs through your Firing Room. Tell me about what that’s like to hear that announcement come out about, hey, 2024…let’s go.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Exciting… I think about our first crewed flight. I mean, you’re absolutely right…boots on the moon in five years does run through our launch vehicle. It does run through our exploration missions, and it absolutely runs through Firing Room 1 and our launch team. I think all of us on that launch team recognize that. We recognize the cadence that is to come. I know that there will be challenges and things we’ll have to go work through. But for me, it is absolutely exciting.

Joshua Santora: So, Jess, being a little bit kind of further down the line from that…as you guys are having meetings, I’m sure this is coming up in conversation. Obviously, it puts an urgency to the 2020 launch of SLS. Is there a change in mood and atmosphere from the teams in the Firing Room or just in the planning and preparation portion?

Jessica Parsons: I would say everyone in our program is really excited. I think a lot of us have been working on this vehicle for a long time. Knowing that we have this sense of urgency to get there, to have a distinct goal, it is very exciting. I mean, I can imagine some similarities back in the ’60s when they said, “We’re going to get to the moon by the end of this decade.” It’s kind of that urgency, that dedication of people…let’s try to do what we can to get there, give the best of ourselves to make sure we accomplish the mission. So I think that is reflected in everybody that works for our program.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: I would add to that. I’m glad you said that, Jess, because it put a thought in my head. I think that when you think about that and you lay out the work, there will be challenges. But one of the things that I think our team does…and I saw it so many times in the Firing Room in Shuttle…is that when we have a challenge, when we have a technical problem that needs to be solved, our teams come together. They rally, they resolve it, and we move on. So I look at this as a great opportunity for our teams to meet those challenges, and I see the same thing. I think there’s a sense of purpose and direction and urgency and just a sense of excitement for what’s to come. We’re a part of something incredibly special.

Joshua Santora: So does it become some kind of like a war cry almost of like when there’s long days, there’s stressful days, there’s challenges, it’s like…hey, 2024, let’s go.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Well, I can only speak for myself, right? On my board I have the words, “What do I have to do today to get to EM-1?” I really need to change that now that we have the boots on the moon 2024; and it really needs to say, “What do I have to do today to get boots on the moon for 2024?” But for me, I look at that every single day; and I do think about that. That is a guiding principle for me. When I come in and figure out what am I going to spend my time on, it really is through the lens of what do I have to do to get us to launch? And I know I’m not alone in that. I know that our program and our sister programs at SLS and Orion…while they may have something different written on their board, I know that they’re marching to that same cadence.

Joshua Santora: Awesome. Thinking about your own paths to get to where you are and for those, Charlie, kind of in your experience that might walk into your Firing Room and just kind of marvel at the team, as you look and think about the next generation, what would you say to them? If you could kind of have a few minutes with them, what would be the advice…what would be the words of encouragement or inspiration or challenge to them?

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Well, one of my favorite parts of this job, besides obviously planning launch countdown and launch ops, is the opportunity to speak to and work with young people. I like to encourage young folks to consider the STEM field. Because I look at it — I had a high school teacher that actually…when I was in the 11th grade, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was kind of thinking about different options. My physics teacher actually said, “Charlie, have you ever thought about being an engineer?” Man, I was like…hm, what would I do with that degree, right? That was the question I asked him. And he said, “What couldn’t you do with that degree?” Now, how right he has been. I mean, I look at all of the things that I have been able to be a part of; and it was all opened by that engineering degree. So I would say to young folks and to young girls to consider that STEM field because you never know where that path will lead you. If you would have told me in the 11th grade when that physics teacher encouraged me to consider engineering in college that one day I would have an opportunity to work on flight hardware, that one day I would be a part of a shuttle launch team, that one day I would be the first woman Launch Director for NASA…that would have been hard to take in. But all of those things were possible because of the education and the background and the opportunity that that engineering degree brought to me. Now, it took a lot of hard work. It took a lot of other things as well, but absolutely that was that first step. So I would say engineering is a great career field, and it opens up a variety of doors.

Jessica Parsons: I feel like we definitely face a lot of challenges in our careers. I’m trying to think of a specific example. But to me…I’ve done this a lot in my career, where I’ve moved into an unknown field, something that I’ve never done before. That’s when I was kind of joking at the beginning. It’s like, yeah, I’ve gone to different places in my career here at the Space Center…not even with a direct path…but I took a chance. I would say maybe coming to this job was an example of that. I said, “I don’t have any experience on launch countdown, but I’ll learn to see what it takes to get there.” I mean, that’s definitely a challenge. I cannot tell you there’s not something every day that I don’t learn about for the first time. But it’s kind of like keep pushing your boundaries to get you there.

Joshua Santora: Awesome. A great pleasure being with both of you…Charlie Blackwell-Thompson, our Launch Director, Jessica Parsons, her right hand. I am so excited and so glad it’s you and not me. Good luck this coming year and, obviously, all the way through 2024.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: Thank you.

Jessica Parsons: Thank you.

Charlie Blackwell-Thompson: It’s going to be great.

Joshua Santora: We are excited to watch the triumph of the entire Space Launch System Team in the coming years and wish them all speedy success. Special thanks to our guests, Charlie Blackwell-Thompson and Jessica Parsons.

To learn more about Exploration Ground Systems, visit: nasa.gov/egs. To learn more about everything going on at the Kennedy Space Center, go to: nasa.gov/kennedy. Check out NASA’s other podcasts to learn more about what’s happening at all of our centers at nasa.gov/podcasts. A special shout-out to our producer, John Sackman, our soundman, Lorne Mathre, editor Michelle Stone, and special thanks to Amanda Griffin. And remember, on the “Rocket Ranch,” even the sky isn’t the limit.