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William V. Chambers – He’s the Magicman of Goddard

Magicman of Goddard
William Chambers demonstrates the floating ball trick.
Credits: NASA/Chris Gunn

Name: William V. Chambers
Title: Project Engineer (mechanical)
Organization: Code 549, Office of Environmental Test Engineering and Integration, Mechanical Systems Division, Science Directorate

William V. Chambers – Magically gets into the nuts and bolts of Goddard’s work

What do you do and what is most interesting about your role here at Goddard? How do you help support Goddard’s mission?

I am a mechanical engineer and structural stress analyst. I test the strength of materials to calculate stresses in the structures that hold the spacecraft and instruments to be tested. I calculate the factors of safety to make sure that the structures don’t break. These structures are holding the test item in place. If they break during a test, then the spacecraft or instrument may be damaged.

How do you make sure that the fixture holding the spacecraft or instrument to be tested is strong enough to hold the test item in place?

I look at the cross sectional area of the supporting structures to calculate moments of inertia. The moment of inertia is the resistance to bending along two different planes, the horizontal and vertical. We don’t want the structure to bend or permanently deform.

What is a typical area of vulnerability?

The solder joints of electronic circuit boards can rip open during launch. Every spacecraft has computers with solder joints. We test our electronics on our vibration shaker and then do a functional test to make sure that the parts still work. If the function is lacking, we visually inspect the solder joints and replace as necessary. Then we repeat the test.

What happens if your calculation shows that the supporting structure will bend?

If the moment of inertia is too small, the structure can bend. If my calculations show that the structure will bend, then I redesign the structure.

Once you are confident that the design is strong enough to resist bending, what do you do next?

We build the structure including all of its parts down to bolts and weldments. I’m involved from design through build to test.

After design and build, what tests does the team perform on the spacecraft or subsystem?

After design and build, we test the spacecraft or subsystem in the supporting structure to simulate the environments it will face from launch to space. Each test is conducted in a different facility.

I work in the centrifuge room, the static test facility, the vibration test facility, and thermal vacuum test facility. Sometimes the test is in the thermal vacuum chamber, which is cooled to minus 420 degrees F. We typically also test in the static test facility where we pull and push using actuators to achieve forces that mimic launch loads. We also put the structure on an enormous centrifuge to also simulate launch loads. Our vibration shakers mimic the violent vibrations for the first eight minutes of launch until the spacecraft leaves our atmosphere. We also have acoustic testing to mimic the sound pressure levels, or noise, at launch.

The length of the tests varies with the particular test. The vibration test is typically three minutes. The centrifuge test may take three hours to complete one run. The thermal vacuum test ranges from one week to up to 100 days, 24/7. Someone is watching and monitoring the stress levels, and temperature levels if it is a thermal vacuum test, for all of these tests every single minute while the test is running. The thermal vacuum test consists of three, eight-hour shifts with an hour overlap to communicate between shifts.

How do you generate the power required for the centrifuge?

Our centrifuge, the largest east of the Mississippi, requires one gigawatt of power, which is one billion watts – enough power to light approximately 17 million, 60-watt light bulbs. Before turning on the centrifuge, we notify Goddard’s power station. We only use that much power for a fraction of a second. Our centrifuge weighs 600,000 pounds and is 130 feet in diameter. It’s a lot of steel. The walls surrounding the centrifuge are one foot thick concrete.

Once the centrifuge starts moving, and we overcome the initial inertia and friction, the centrifuge will then need much less power to continue moving and spinning up faster and faster. At maximum speed, the centrifuge spins at 156 mph, which is 33 rotations per minute.

Have you been to any launches?

In my 27 years at Goddard, I’ve been to two Hubble Servicing Mission launches. I felt very proud to be part of the team associated with each launch. Launch is the ultimate test. The launch environment can be more hazardous than the space environment.

Why did you become an engineer?

Initially I wanted to be a physicist. My first major in college was physics, but I didn’t like college physics. It was too theoretical. I wanted to do something more hands on and practical, so I switched to mechanical engineering. I like getting into the nuts and bolts of things.

Who is the most amazing person you have met or worked with at Goddard? 

Dr. John Mather, our Nobel laureate, is the most humble person I’ve ever met and the most brilliant. He wrote a book called “The Very First Light,” which is about Goddard’s Cosmic Origin Background Explorer mission launched in 1989 and the basis for his prize. In his book, Dr. Mather specifically mentioned all the hundreds of people involved in COBE, including me. I have three or four interns I mentor every year. I usually buy each intern a copy of Dr. Mather’s book and he is always gracious enough to autograph every copy with personal notes to each intern.

He is an inspiration. When I first got to Goddard, I was in a meeting with Dr. Mather and others about the science expected from COBE. I was new and did not know Dr. Mather. Before he even knew me, he took the time to talk to me personally about COBE. He will do the same for anyone, including interns and even the mothers of interns.

William Chambers and the rope trick
William Chambers’ rope trick.
Credits: Courtesy of W. Chambers

What advice to you give your interns?

I always tell my interns to ask questions about how things work. You have to ask questions to drill down to get to the essence of what is important. I tell them not to be afraid to ask a question and that there is no dumb question. There is an art to asking good questions and the more questions you ask, the better you get at developing good questions. You have to be curious and creative and not afraid to ask probing questions. You need to want to know what is next, where are we going, what is the next big thing.

Learning is a social activity. The social part of learning is interacting with people face to face. The richest, more productive form of communication is face-to-face, one-on-one. Getting to know the people on your team will make working together more enjoyable and effective and you’ll also learn more.

What is an example of how you think creatively?

I’ve been a magician since I was 7. I needed a way to connect with people and be more social. I’ve performed for years. This past Goddard Day, Sept. 26, 2015, I performed as a walk around magician for six hours. I walked around performing close up magic tricks with cards, coins, ropes and sponge balls. The children loved it.

I also volunteer one Sunday a month at the Goddard Visitor Center, where I combine magic with engineering. For example, when I talk about gravity and the lack of gravity in space, I do a trick with an antigravity rope that stays horizontal about six feet in the air.

My daughter, who is 25, teaches third grade in Harford County, Maryland. She asked me to teach a “math through magic” class for a special audience including the teachers, the parents and the children. I’ll do two half-hour shows, one for kindergarten through second grade and the other for third through fifth. For the youngest group, I’ll teach addition and subtraction through vanishes and productions. So I’ll make a bunny vanish and then I’ll make a bunny reappear. For the older group, I’ll teach multiplication and division through multiplying. For example, I’ll turn one soda bottle into 10 soda bottles.

Do you have another hobby?

I sing in a barbershop quartet. Since 2007, I have also been signing with the Chorus of the Chesapeake, a barbershop chorus in Baltimore. We are a chorus of 55 men. We compete internationally. In 2013, we competed in Toronto and we were ranked 21st in the world.

What is your “six-word memoir”?  A six-word memoir describes something in just six words.

Magic. Music. Humor. Social. Storyteller. Mentoring.

By Elizabeth M. Jarrell
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

A graphic with a collection of people's portraits grouped together in front of a soft blue galaxy background. The people come from various races, ethnicities, and genders. A soft yellow star shines in the upper left corner, and the stylized text "Conversations with Goddard" is in white on the far right.
Conversations With Goddard is a collection of question and answer profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage.

Conversations With Goddard is a collection of Q&A profiles highlighting the breadth and depth of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center’s talented and diverse workforce. The Conversations have been published twice a month on average since May 2011. Read past editions on Goddard’s “Our People” webpage.

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Last Updated
Jul 25, 2023