It is a long way from Seattle, Washington, to Stennis Space Center in south Mississippi, especially when one travels via North Carolina. Yet, that is exactly the path that led Elizabeth Calantoni to the test site and the front lines of the next great era of space exploration.
A native of Seattle, Calantoni grew up watching Carl Sagan’s Cosmos series, which inspired her to study physics at the University of Washington and led to a teaching post at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. She excelled in that role and even was named a member of the school’s Academy of Outstanding Teachers.
After 12 years, however, she had an ambition for something new. “I think every physics major, at some point, dreams of working for NASA,” she said. “Certainly, it was a dream of mine from childhood.”
Such an opportunity arose when her then-fiance, Joe Calantoni, accepted a position with the Naval Research Laboratory at Stennis. The couple married and moved to Mississippi, where the former teacher enrolled in the master of business administration program at the nearby University of Southern Mississippi.
Calantoni soon met a fellow student who worked at Stennis. He encouraged her to apply for an administrative assistant position with a Stennis contractor in 2010. Once at Stennis, Calantoni found herself shuffled between roles, wherever support was needed, before joining the company’s pressure systems engineering group.
“Moving through multiple roles over the first few years was tough, but I got to know a lot of great people and gained an understanding of Stennis that has helped me to this day,” Calantoni said.
Calantoni joined NASA in 2016 as a member of the Safety and Mission (SMA) Directorate team. That role has placed her squarely on the front lines of propulsion testing for the new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket that will return humans to the Moon and, ultimately, carry them to Mars.
Calantoni’s work includes providing SMA support for the SLS core stage Green Run Test Project on the B-2 Test Stand. NASA has spent several years modifying the stand to test the SLS core stage prior to its maiden mission.
The core stage is set to arrive at Stennis by year’s end, with testing to follow in 2020. Once testing is complete, the stage will be shipped to Kennedy Space Center for launch on the Artemis I mission.
NASA has launched the Artemis Program to return humans, including the first woman and next man, to the Moon by 2024. A series of Artemis missions will help the United States to establish a strategic lunar presence and to develop and test capabilities that will be needed for missions elsewhere, including Mars.
Calantoni is part of a team that oversees a range of activities at the B-2 stand, from reviewing design packages to establishing safety and quality plans to monitoring construction and activation work to identifying project risks and controls. “Basically, safety and mission assurance is involved in every stage of the project and works in any capacity necessary to ensure the safety of personnel and the successful achievement of project objectives,” Calantoni explained.
Calantoni is proud to support the NASA mission. “Having the opportunity to work directly ‘up close and personal’ with hardware that will take us into space is inspiring,” she said.
Calantoni also is grateful for the chance to serve alongside the dedicated, highly skilled people at Stennis. “One of the things I really like about working here is the underlying sense that we’re all part of a family,” she pointed out. “Folks here do their jobs and look out for each other.”
Valerie Buckingham
Stennis Space Center, Bay St. Louis, Mississippi
228-688-3898
valerie.d.buckingham@nasa.gov