“Houston We Have a Podcast” is the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, the home of human spaceflight, stationed in Houston, Texas. We bring space right to you! On this podcast, you’ll learn from some of the brightest minds of America’s space agency as they discuss topics in engineering, science, technology and more. You’ll hear firsthand from astronauts what it’s like to launch atop a rocket, live in space and re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere. And you’ll listen in to the more human side of space as our guests tell stories of behind-the-scenes moments never heard before.

We’re doing something a little bit different in Episode 32 for African American History Month. We team up with our African American Employee Resource Group at the Johnson Space Center to bring 4 guests from different areas of expertise like life support systems, robotics, flight control and leadership to explain what they do and the paths they took to work at NASA. This episode was recorded on January 31, 2018.

Transcript

Gary Jordan (Host): Houston, We Have A Podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center, Episode 32, African American History Month. I’m Gary Jordan, and I’ll be your co-host today, along with Kai Harris, the Lead Budget Analyst for Propulsion and Power Engineering Division, and the chair of the African American Employee Resource Group. Kai, thanks for coming on!

Kai Harris: Hey, Gary! Glad to be here!

Host: So we have these groups here at the center called, Employee Resource Groups, and Kai here is the Chair of the African American Employee Resource Group, so, we teamed up to do a special episode for African American History Month where we’ll be bringing in four guests that specialize in different areas across the center to do four unique segments.

Kai Harris:That’s right! We’re very proud of our employee resource group, and we have folks with the right range of skills. Today, we have guests involved in life support systems, an Orion flight controller, robotics engineering, and human health and performance.

Host: Awesome! I’m excited that we can bring everyone together for this episode. So this is pretty cool, because you’ll see, all in one episode, how many things are going on at the same time. So, with no further delay, let’s go lightspeed and jump right ahead to talk with our guests from across the center for African American History Month. Enjoy!

[ Music & Radio Transmissions ]

Host: Alright, Kai, thanks for helping me open up this episode, but before we go to our first guest, I kind of wanted to set some context about ERGs, these employer resource groups. So, you can kind of start off by talking about, what is an employee resource group here at the Johnson Space Center, and then about yours, the African American Employee Resource Group.

Kai Harris:So the mission of the AAERG is to serve JSC as a catalyst to strengthen JSC recruitment, onboarding, retention, engagement, and development of African Americans at JSC. That’s contributing to the maximum inclusion and innovation of the JSC workforce, and enhancing success of the NASA mission and vision. We do a lot of outreach events through the community. We feel it’s important to have a focus on the community, let them know that there are people out there at JSC who look like them who work here, kind of give them hope that they can also work here. We also promote STEM a lot. We bring in speakers and we focus a lot on developing our employees. We have several training sessions throughout the year, we have speakers come in, and it’s all about helping to make JSC an even better place to work.

Host: Awesome! Alright, well, I’m excited to kind of kick this off. So, alright, Kai, who is going to be our first guest today?

Kai Harris:First is Antja Chambers. She’s the Thermal and Humidity Control Subsystem Manager of the ISS in the Life Support Systems branch. She started here as a co-op and has worked on a lot of different projects in her time here.

Host: Alright, well, producer Alex, let’s play the wormhole sound effect and get right into that talk.

[ Sound Effects ]

Host: Okay, so — so you started your journey here as a co-op, right?

Antja Chambers: I did! I started — basically, I got into — so I went to the University of Texas at Austin, where I pursued a degree in — in aerospace engineering, and — but prior to that, when I was in high school, I participated in the Texas Aerospace Scholars Program. I believe they’ve updated it, since then, the name of it.

Host: Yeah, I think it’s NCAS now, it’s national community colleges that they bring — they bring community college students from all over the nation, I think, now, yeah.

Antja Chambers: Wow! That’s awesome! No, they — I remember it was advertised in my high school, hey, we’re — NASA’s looking for high school students to come to NASA and have mentor — NASA engineer mentors and I was — I hopped right on it and I went to NASA for about a week. We had like a series of assignments up until that point, and spent a week at NASA and learned about the co-op program, and how it was like one of the primary hiring grounds for — for students or for full-time employees, and I was sold. So, when I — the very, very, very [Gary laughing] first career fair at University of Texas, I was a freshman, and the NASA booth was the booth that I went to first. Handed me resume, and that following year, they were actually hiring sophomore-level [laughing] students. I interviewed and was offered a co-op at NASA. So I was really excited!

Host: Alright! And the co-op is — it’s a rotational program, right? So you go multiple times?

Antja Chambers: Yeah, they — it — it was called, when — back in my day, the cooperative education program. I believe it’s now called Pathways.

Host: Yes.

Antja Chambers: The Pathways Intern Program.

Host: Yes.

Antja Chambers: But it’s still the same thing. Basically, you would go to NASA for a semester or a quarter, depending on the school that you go to, and kind of rotate between NASA and your school until graduation. And, on average, it kind of extends the graduation date for about — by about a year.

Host: Okay.

Antja Chambers: Which is well worth it by the way! [Laughter] Any type of on the job experience that you can get, especially in engineering, to figure out is this really, really what you want to do, the better.

Host: Yeah, I was Pathways too, and…

Antja Chambers: Awesome!

Host: Yeah! So I — I came in, but I was a non-technical major, so I did the two summers, one semester rotation, and so I was delayed by just a semester, but, again, totally worth it, because — because it’s…

Antja Chambers: And look where you are!

Host: Here I am! Here I am talking to super cool people like you! So, you’re — so you were a co-op going on as a — was it engineering? You have an engineering background?

Antja Chambers: Yes, yep. I was an aerospace engineer, and so I believe it was my sophomore year I — I entered into, and the first group that they put me in was the pyrotechnics area, and…

Host: Playing with fire!

Antja Chambers: That team is amazing! And it was a great introduction to what NASA was. I remember I, when I first got there, I’m like, oh, Dr. so and so, Dr. so and so, because I thought everybody at NASA had to have a PhD, and then they like let it ride for maybe a day, because [Gary laughing] they thought it was funny, and then they’re like, well…

Host: Yeah, yeah, I’m a doctor, yeah.

Antja Chambers: Right! They’re like, no, no, no, not everybody at NASA are doctors, and so — and then I kind of learned about how diverse the workforce is, not only from an engineering standpoint, but in the levels of education standpoint, and how they came together as a team.

Host: Definitely. So is that where you transitioned into? Were you — did you transition to propulsion? Or did you kind of go into something else when you went full-time?

Antja Chambers: Oh, so — so pyros, so what I did, so I did pyrotechnics for my first tour, and then my second tour was in the trajectory operations, and it was then the mission operations director, and now it’s, I believe, the flight operations director…

Host: A lot of changes.

Antja Chambers: Yeah, they change. And then the third co-op tour was spent in aircraft operations director, which I believe has also changed now. And so I was looking at more atmospheric flight, and then the final one was in the systems test branch in my current division, which is the crew and thermal systems division. And so — and we, the division, kind of focused on life support systems and life support for the astronauts and support for the crew. And so, after I did my final tour in the crew and the thermal system division, I was given a job offer, once I returned to school, and now the rest is history, I spent pretty much my whole career in the same division, but I switched branches within there, so.

Host: I see.

Antja Chambers: I went to the extravehicular activity tools, I went and I worked on the tools for Hubble Space Telescope, and then I moved to RCC plug repair, reinforced carbon carbon, which is the material that the — the tiles are made — are — well, the shuttle is now retired, but the leading edge of the wing of the shuttle and repair tools for that. And then I moved to spacesuits, and then, right now, I’m in life support systems. So, environmental control life support systems.

Host: See, now you’re just bragging! Because [Antja laughing] you’re all over the place! So you started with pyrotechnics, then you got trajectory, then you’re doing airplanes, then you’re doing life support systems, and then you’re making tools for — for Hubble. This is crazy! That’s the most insane resume I’ve ever seen! But going — I wanted to kind of skip around to that part where you were talking about tools for Hubble.

Antja Chambers: Sure!

Host: You actually designed the — because — because, you know, Hubble wasn’t designed to be serviced, but it — but then you had to figure it out, right? Because of the — the astigmatism, so — so what tools were you making? What were you working on?

Antja Chambers: So, it was interesting with Hubble. How the project — when it — it was initially introduced to me, I was like, oh my gosh, these are old tools, because these tools were actually a set of tools that were already used for Hubble throughout multiple service missions, and so some of those tools were older than I was. And they actually had handwritten drawings [laughter], so they weren’t even — they weren’t even computer-generated drawings, and so — so the idea is that you would get these sets of tools and get them ready for the next servicing mission. There were, however, some tools, like the manipulator foot restraint, which required a lot more additional engineering, a lot more support, and — and so that became a bigger project than was anticipated, and it’s actually featured in the Smithsonian right now if anybody wants to go and see it.

Host: What? [Antja laughing]

Antja Chambers: After a — yeah, after the final servicing mission with the STS 125, they retired most of the Hubble tools and some of them were submitted to the Smithsonian, so.

Host: Right, because they had to be specially-designed for that, right?

Antja Chambers: Exactly.

Host: Because it was such a unique sort of thing, and this — you had to create, what was it, it was a foot restraint, a special foot restraint?

Antja Chambers: Yeah, so what the foot restraint, it’s — it allows the crew member — so the robotic arm of the space shuttle would grab the foot restraint, the astronaut would then lock themselves into place, and then the arm operator inside the space shuttle would pretty much put the astronaut on the end of the foot restraint, in the location that they needed to work. And we ran into quite a few problems with the MFR, trying to get it prepped for this flight, from everything. It’s — it’s a — it was probably a great experience in showing how hardware ages, especially space hardware. And then all of the updates that you’re going to have to do in order to get it ready for flight, and so, we had — we failed thermal testing, we failed vibe testing, we failed all sorts of testing, and we had to do fault tree investigations, and we finally got the final product so that we could use it for Hubble.

Host: Wow! Alright, and then it — and then it worked, right?

Antja Chambers: It worked great!

Host: It did what it needed to do, and the astronauts were able to go out and fix Hubble and get those — some of those images that we see now for the past however many years, incredible!

Antja Chambers: Yeah, it was a — it was a very humbling experience, because they mentioned that if the MFR wasn’t available, they would have lost hours of crew time, and ability to do as much of the servicing as they would have — would have been able to do otherwise.

Host: Wow!

Antja Chambers: No pressure!

Host: Yeah [Antja laughing], right?

Antja Chambers: But it was great because we got a lot of chance to work with a lot of different centers, Kennedy Space Center for the launch then prep and stowing it on the space shuttle, and then, of course, Goddard Space Flight Center which was the lead for the actual Hubble mission. So it was — it was really great across center work, great teams that were involved there.

Host: Wow, what an experience! So cool. But then you — you said most of your career has been in, is it life support systems? Is that — is that kind of what you’re focusing on?

Antja Chambers: So I am in life support systems right now. The division that I’m in, the crew and thermal systems division, they have branches and so the first branch, when I was a co-op, I did the systems test branch, which the — the vacuum chambers that are very popular, the — I think it’s one of the largest ones in the world are chamber A where we actually tested Apollo, and then when I was hired on full-time, I worked in the EVA tools and equipment branch, which is where the Hubble tools fell, and then I worked into the space — rotated into the spacesuit branch where I — I worked a lot with the space, the new spacesuit, or the spacesuit interface for the Const — the Constellation program, which is now Orion, the Orion project. And then, from there, I rotated into life support systems, which is where I currently am.

Host: Okay, and you have some cool projects that you’ve done there, right?

Antja Chambers: Yes!

Host: One of the — one of the more important ones is the water recycling system on — on the International Space Station, right?

Antja Chambers: Yeah, they have — so water is very heavy and very expensive to launch. We do launch it, still, but one of the goals of the Space Station too is to try to develop, you know, closed loop life support systems, which are especially useful for long-term missions that are out of low-earth orbit. And so, one of the things that we do is we try to recover water from urine, which is — a lot of people are like, oh my god, urine! [Gary laughing] But — but it’s actually interesting. The water that we reclaim from urine is actually cleaner than probably any water that anybody on the ground will ever drink, and so, I have not tried it, but we don’t [laughter] get any complaints that I know of from the crew, I guess. But — but at the time, what we were looking at, we were looking at 75 percent water recovery. We — our target was about 85 percent water recovery, but the problem is is that the more water you reclaim out of urine, there’s salts that are leftover, and so those salts can create precipitation when mixed with our pretreatment solution. We pretreat the urine. One, it helps stabilize the urine, and also so that we can actually process it, but the problem is is that the pretreatment we were using at the time was sulfate-based, and it would inter — it would form a precipitate in the urine that was not ideal and what it would do is clog up our systems, and so, what we had to do then was we decided to take kind of the sulfate aspect out of it and make it a phosphate-base solution. And so — so we changed the pretreat, which was still a relatively strong acid, not quite as strong as sulfate, so we had to make it a little bit stronger, so that we can increase our water recovery from the kind of 72/74 percent water recovery to about 85 to close to actually 90 percent water recovery.

Host: Wow!

Antja Chambers: And so it’s — we are very, very proud of that, so just think that, you know, of the urine you’re looking at, if you like look at urine, 85 percent of that can be reclaimed as water and recycled, and the crew can — can drink it, they can do whatever they need to do that’s water-related on station.

Host: The cleanest water that you’d never try! [Laughter]

Antja Chambers: That I would never try! But it’s funny, some of the engineers have, like, you know, water bottles on their desks saying, oh, this is so and so’s urine! It’s just…[Gary groaning]. But it’s water! But it’s — it’s — but it’s a great team, it’s great to see how kind of desensitized everybody gets to talking about urine or, really, anything related to the human body, we — we — it becomes, like, oh, well, you know, how do we do this? How do we treat skin cells? How do we treat condensate? How do we treat, you know, it’s like — it becomes like, how do we integrate better the human body and everything that it needs, how can we make that more of a closed-loop system relative to the spacecraft it inhabits, and so, it’s quite a challenge, and, as a result, we have a lot of spinoffs as a result that we try to take — that we try to distribute to the — the general populous, I guess.

Host: That’s right. We always brag about one of the technologies in the water recycling system has been brought down and used in third world countries to kind of help recycle some of the water or, I guess, treat some of the water so — so it’s drinkable, it’s potable.

Antja Chambers: Yeah, it’s — it’s the goal. Ours is a little more toxic, but we are looking at non-toxic forms in order to try to implement on a mass scale too. So, yeah, we’re…

Host: Alright!

Antja Chambers: Water reclamation is definitely something that we’re interested, you know, of course on this planet, and it’s actually another example of in the pursuit of trying to do closed-loop life support on space station or any NASA endeavor, we get these kind of spin-off technologies that actually bring the rest of the world with us.

Host: Oh, fantastic! [Antja laughing] So cool. And that’s the — so you kind of mentioned it, and I wanted to touch on briefly, is the ultimate goal is — is closed loop, and that means that it’s — it’s all feeding itself, the water, the air, everything is sort of being recycled and I guess you can say the — the goal was perfection, is to do it in a way that where you don’t need to resupply anything, it’s just kind of feeding on itself.

Antja Chambers: Yeah, limited waste is always — always our goal. Now, there are some missions that it would make more sense having open-looped systems, just because they’re shorter, but for — if we’re looking at deep exploration, the more closed-loop and less waste that we have, the less that we have to bring with us, the better. And so, that’s always — always one of the goals, the major goals.

Host: Yes. Because resupplying that ship that’s far, far away is going to be pretty difficult.

Antja Chambers: Right! It’s not like going to the local grocery store and saying, oh, well, [laughter] let’s just get some more water or get some more food.

Host: Yeah.

Antja Chambers: How do we make it so that we’re less dependent on outside resources?

Host: Exactly. So I kind of wanted to end with the project that you’re working on now, and that’s ammonia emergency response? Is that right?

Antja Chambers: Yes, that’s correct. I am currently — so we have, on space station, an emergency scenario, we use ammonia as a coolant on space station, and — and the emergency scenario, there’s a possibility that some of that ammonia could leak inside space station, and ammonia is very, very toxic to humans. And, you know, it’s 3,500 parts per million concentration of ammonia would lead to one breath to death, and at much lower concentrations, you can smell it, it would start degrading. It’s — you’re — you can’t see very well. Ammonia loves water, and so, and we’re — we have a lot of things [laughing].

Host: We’re mostly water.

Antja Chambers: Right. And so, and it also has an adverse effect on our skin at some of these concentrations too. And so, as a result, my team helped develop the ammonia emergency response, how should the crew respond to this emergency event? And the — the emergency stakeholder community, we have a large community that determined that we do need a way that we can scrub the ammonia from the air, as well as provide an alternate air source or air supply to protect their lungs and their eyes, in this case, as they’re trying to escape from space station. And so how the scenario would go is that you would have an ammonia alarm on station, the crew would don a — it’s a quick don mask, or QDMA, that has a pure O2 source, but it’s only for about 7 and a half to 15 minutes. So they’re going to have to switch eventually.

Host: Okay.

Antja Chambers: What they do is they — they close their hatches as they go to isolate their escape vehicle. They close the hatch, and this is the commercial crew vehicle — vehicles that we’re talking about, and you close the hatches, the ammonia scrubber, which is going to be already in there, would be turned on, it would clean that environment. The crew would have to switch to a — a secondary source, which is going to be breathing air, because we’re worried about flammability issues. So you’re looking at maybe 23 to 24 percent O2 instead of 100 percent that they’re original source was. And so, basically, they would have to wait about 30 minutes, is the target. 30 minutes or less to completely scrub that environment, and once the environment is clean, they can get off of their mask and they can get prepared to undock from station and return home.

Host: Alright!

Antja Chambers: And so that’s the whole [laughing] scenario.

Host: So your job is to work on the whole scenario, or just the quick don mask, or?

Antja Chambers: So, initially, I developed the — the scenario, pulled in all of the stakeholders, and it’s a rather large community. We looked at operations, we looked at our different providers, we looked at safety, the flight doctors, everybody came together and pulled together, I pulled together that story, and from there, we were granted funding in order to build the ammonia scrubber, which I’m the project manager of right now, and then a technical type manager on the NASA side for the CCV emergency breathing air supplier, CEBA, [phonetic] which is the secondary source that the crew uses in the vehicle.

Host: Alright! Alright, so you oversee a lot. [Laughter] Wow!

Antja Chambers: And so it’s — it’s a lot of integration, but I’ll tell you, the — the teams are impressive, everybody’s goal is the same, they want the crew to be safe and return home, and everybody’s motivated to that end. So it’s — it’s — it’s great to see a plan come together.

Host: Yeah, absolutely! Wow! What an amazing scenario! Hey, Antja, thank you so much for coming on and kind of sharing your experience. So cool! What an amazing career! Thank you so much for coming on!

Antja Chambers: Thank you! Thank you for having me, I really enjoyed it.

Host: Of course!

[ Sound Effects ]

Host: Alright, that was awesome! Talking with Antja, she kind of made me feel…like I needed to improve my resume a little bit [laughing]. Alright, so, Kai, who’s next?

Antja Chambers: Next is Gavin Guy. He’s a Robotic Engineers working in the Software, Robotics, and Simulation Division. He started working at JSC after getting his BS in electrical engineering from the University of Houston, go Cougs, and has now been full-time at JSC for a little over three and a half years.

Host: Alright, let’s — let’s go right through the wormhole to that talk. Go producer, Alex!

[ Sound Effects ]

Host: Okay, so, Gavin, thanks for coming on! So you started…did you start as a co-op or an intern?

Gavin Guy: I started as a co-op in the fall of 2011. That sounds right.

Host: Alright, cool! So, another co-op that we have here. We just talked to Antya, and she’s — she was also a co-op, me here — me too, so, great program! Definitely gets you in the door! [Laughter] So, do you do all of your rotations in engineering?

Gavin Guy:I did not. My first rotation was in the spacecraft software engineering branch, which is in the same division I am in now, but a different branch. And then my second one was in FOD, where I worked with the Spartans. And then my final one is — was in the ER5, which is my current branch, the dynamic systems test branch.

Host: Okay, so a little bit of the same division, but then you kind of dabbled in flight control for a little bit, right, with FOD as a Spartan, and they do the thermal systems, right?

Gavin Guy:They did. At the time, the external thermal, and the power systems for ISS.

Host: Alright, cool!

Gavin Guy:I might be wrong on that.

Host: But now you’re in — and that’s our — that’s our [inaudible] code, I guess, is ER5, and that means engineering and then for the robotics, what is it, software robotics and simulation division? Is that what it is?

Gavin Guy:Yes. [Gary laughing] Software robotics and simulation division, yes.

Host: Okay, so you kind of work with some of the robotic — some robotics for space station, primarily, right?

Gavin Guy:I — so my group is robotic test systems, and they support either [pause] tool development, system, like a payload development, or station testing analysis. So, for instance, if something like one of the tools, like a robot, micro [inaudible] tool had some issues, or someone — some unknown — things that weren’t fully understood, we did some analysis on that using our engineering unit and our test systems to understand and analyze the situation and try to get some feedback as to what they could be and best ways to move forward.

Host: Okay. Cool. So one of the — one of the pieces of equipment, and this is very visual, because you’re doing this — all of this in a lot of the work in building 9, right? And building 9 is our sort of playground, I guess you could say [Gavin laughing]? You’ve got the mockups of the International Space Shuttle, you got mockups of the Orion, but then you have this whole robotics side where you have all of these, you know, all these robotic elements that you’ve built over time, but then also places to test some things, and one of them is ARGOS, right?

Gavin Guy:Correct.

Host: So what’s — what’s ARGOS?

Gavin Guy:ARGOS is our microgravity simulator, that stands for Active Response Gravity Offload System. It’s easiest visualized as an overhead crane system for people, but it’s — it’s fully robotic, has a pretty good control system. It has a vertical and a horizontal component, and the vertical component is track — has inline fore sensors [phonetic] which keeps track of the payload attached to it and can simulate either the martian or lunar gravity, or different microgravity situations, and we’ve used it for testing things like Robonaut, which is on International Space Station. They have an engineering unit, and they test out some of their ISS operations in ARGOS. We’ve done suit evaluation testing, just understanding the suit requirements in a dynamic gravity offloading test setup. And we’ve also — we’ve supported things like rovers, like we have our Resource Prospect Rover here at JSC that we’re working on, which is supposed to be a rover that does drilling operations sometime in the future.

Host: Alright! So, you put it on this — on this system, this ARGOS, and, you know, you say there’s a payload that goes in it, and that is — that is the thing that you’re testing, whether it’s a person in a suit or the robot or whatever, and then it can kind of simulate whatever gravity you want to program into it, so microgravity or lunar gravity, martial gravity, that kind of thing, right?

Gavin Guy:Exactly.

Host: Okay. So what are some of the tests that you’ve been kind of setting up? I’m sure it’s like this big crane system, but then you kind of have this — this floor where you can set up a test or — or practice something. So, what’s some of the things you’ve been running?

Gavin Guy:So lately, they’ve been doing things related to our alpha magnetic spectrometer.

Host: Okay.

Gavin Guy:Which is AMS for short. It’s — currently, they need to do some EVAs to repair some things on the deployed system, and they’ve been testing out their — their, essentially their steps, right? So it’s better to understand those kinds of things on the ground where things are easy to — to say, oops, we didn’t plan for that. So, understanding that if you’re coming into something in a — in a gravity offloading scenario, these are the things we’re going to try to do and with our suits, the specific suits we’re using for EVAs, these are our limitations for this specific task, expect this when you’re doing it, and they can kind of practice that here on the ground and understand it better, before they send tools or — or do the procedures that they’ll do on the day of the EVA.

Host: That’s right, okay, so you kind of set up where the alpha magnetic spectrometer is on the station and kind of give, here’s going to be the lay of the land when you actually do the spacewalk, and then you kind of run through your procedures to say, okay, I’m going to grab onto this handrail and fix this element in this position.

Gavin Guy:Right.

Host: And then if that doesn’t work, okay, maybe we should switch the procedures to do maybe a little bit of that?

Gavin Guy:Right. So it gives the — the team that’s developing the procedures and the tools and the — the supporting that EVA effort [phonetic] test system to really understand what’s going on and the scope of — of that work.

Host: So it’s pretty collaborative then. You guys are working with the extravehicular office, right? You’re working with some of those guys who are developing the procedures and all doing this test together?

Gavin Guy:Right. So, I think the main people is EC? I don’t really…

Host: Another engineering branch?

Gavin Guy:Yeah.

Host: Yeah.

Gavin Guy:So there’s also EVA involved indirectly, I’m sure, and even directly maybe, but it’s — it’s a pretty big — they learn a lot from doing these kind of things.

Host: Cool! Is there a lot of changes that go with ARGOS? Are you kind of reprogramming it or — or adding new features to it? Is it kind of an evergoing project or is it this — is it this test bed that you use and it’s pretty good and runs well on its own?

Gavin Guy:We go through different phases, right? So, currently we’re in a pretty — we’re in an operational phase where we’re mostly supporting test — test scenarios, but there’s definitely improvements we can make in the system. It has great capability right now, but we have ideas for — for upgrades and things, so we always continually try to research and develop as we go. But it is fully operational, human certified test system, that we have in building 9.

Host: Alright! Yeah, human certified, right? Have you ever — have you ever actually strapped yourself in and gone on a run?

Gavin Guy:I have actually! [Gary laughing] Yeah, yeah, fairly recently.

Host: Is it — is it different? So you’ve actually kind of felt this simulated micro — was it microgravity, or did you do another type of…?

Gavin Guy:I did microgravity, yeah, and horizontal configuration.

Host: Okay. How was it?

Gavin Guy:It was great! It was — it was a great experience, for sure. So, you know, I — I simulated going across ISS using the handrails, and kind of, you know what that’s like, and, you know, so it was — it was awesome! It was a great experience, I was free floating, you know? Like able to push off with a single finger and — and just feel like I float, which is — which is nice.

Host: Wow! Were you fully suited up or were you kind of?

Gavin Guy:I didn’t do the — the full suit.

Host: Okay.

Gavin Guy:So I was doing, it’s called short sleeve, it’s kind of just like your — your regular activewear type scenario.

Host: Oh, okay. Okay. But it’s kind of cool because you said you can just poke — you can just point — poke, and then your whole body will float in another direction.

Gavin Guy:Yep, and then laws of physics kind of are simulated within the system, so, you know, if there’s nothing to stop you and you’re offloaded in the environment, then you kind of just float away.

Host: [Laughing] Did you — did your body get used to it pretty quickly or was it very new and hard to adjust?

Gavin Guy:For me, it was fairly new and hard to adjust, so, it’s — it’s — and I think if you’re not used to it, you don’t use your body efficiently, and so you — it’s actually a workout, right? So it’s like, oh, man, I don’t know how to exist in this environment, and I’m using, I think I’m supposed to use muscles, but you prob — there’s — the astronauts seem to be fine when they’re in there, or the crew, the [inaudible] and the — the crew — the crew members that — that interface with our system, but.

Host: Particularly the flown ones, or even just like astronaut candidates that haven’t flown, but just they’re just that good, I guess, I don’t know.

Gavin Guy:Yeah, at least they’re better than me, is what I would say [laughter]. Yeah, so.

Host: Oh, I’m sure the flown astronauts probably have the — the easiest adjustment, like, you strap them in and they’re ready to go, they’re moving around like — like an ice skater on ice or something, I don’t know.

Gavin Guy:Yes, definitely.

Host: Yeah. Very cool!

Gavin Guy:It was awesome getting in. I think before I came to NASA, at University of Houston, I was like, early on, like, oh, man, I want to — I really want to work for NASA, they’re working on cool, innovative things, and so I think I, like years — like a year before I got co-op offer, I received a call from the ARGOS project manager at the time, which was Larry Dungan, and he kind of told me what it was about, and I was like, oh, that’d be awesome to work on, and now, many years down the line, I’m working on a system which is pretty cool.

Host: Wow! Alright! So your introduction to NASA was someone actually calling you up and saying, hey, this is some of the cool things that you can expect here.

Gavin Guy:Yep.

Host: Very cool! So, what other things can you find in building 9? Are you working exclusively in building 9 on different projects or is it — are you kind of working…?

Gavin Guy:That’s the main things I’ve been doing lately is in building 9. So one of the other projects I support is the Dexterous Manipulator Testbed.

Host: Okay.

Gavin Guy:DMT.

Host: Okay.

Gavin Guy:So, that — that’s a robotic manipulator. The — we’re going through an upgrade effort at the moment. We had a two-arm hydraulic system before, and it — it was mainly used as a — as a test bed, people have used it for things such as understanding things that Dexter, which is on International Space Station, our special purpose Dexterous Manipulator.

Host: Yeah.

Gavin Guy:To — to understand how payloads interface with that robotic system and kind of understanding what forces they can tolerate in terms of insertion forces for doing change out — change out operations for batteries on station and different ORUs, and so, we’re going through an upgrade process, where we’re going to put in an electric arm. In the past, we’ve typically tested only one arm at a time, so we’ve kind of gone from a two-arm system to a one-arm system, and we’re going to go ahead and, of course, keep our dynamic — dynamic simulations in the loop, and so that we can understand how — how best to send up or use or evaluate new payloads, or understand things that need to interface with the — with the robotic manipulators really.

Host: Alright.

Gavin Guy:Yeah, so, it’s going to be pretty — a pretty cool capability.

Host: Yeah! That’s great because, you know, EVAs or spacewalks can be sometimes a little bit dangerous, you can say, I mean, it’s — it’s — there’s always the chance of micrometeorite impact and you have to make sure you go through the procedures, and astronauts are very good at practicing for those to understand, you know, what’s going to happen and — and how to do the maneuvers, but if you can do the entire thing robotically, the Dexter goes on the end of the station’s robotic arm and can do actual swaps. They can replace — they can replace components of the space station without astronaut involvement, they can begin doing science while this robot it fixing the outside.

Gavin Guy:Right.

Host: That’d be cool.

Gavin Guy:Definitely. And on, like, unloading cargo vehicles as they come up and things like that, and so as — as — as ISS moves forward, they’re going to need to try to — to use that capability as much as they can, and so.

Host: I’m just thinking I just want one for my house so I can just repair different parts of the house, and I don’t have to — I could just sit and eat and watch TV, and have this Dexter doing all the work for me!

Gavin Guy:Yeah, that’d be awesome!

Host: [Laughing] Alright, one thing before — before I let you go is, one of your current projects is a — is a — it’s called, Habitable Airlock, is that what it is?

Gavin Guy:Yes.

Host: Yeah, what’s that all about?

Gavin Guy:So, Habit — Habitable Airlock is — is a — it’s a cabin concept that we’re working on here at JSC, where typically as astronauts need to go do EVAs, they have to go through an airlock and they’re typically trying to adjust their pressure environment and they have to spend several hours getting — getting like accumulated to where they’re going to go to. And so, in general, there’s not a lot of functional things they can do in the airlock while they’re doing that, and the goal for this — this habitable airlock is to make it so that while they’re doing the — the getting in the process of having to prep for an EVA, they can exist and be habitable and still do like science tasks and still be functional during that time, so they can essentially just use it as they would use any other part of — of their system. And so it’s a — it’s supporting our — our deep space gateway mission that we’re — we’re exploring, and so, yeah, it’s — it’s supposed to be pretty cool.

Host: Yeah!

Gavin Guy:We’re working on that right now.

Host: That’s great! So it’s — it’s designed for a microgravity environment rather than like I guess a plant — a planetary airlock between — between the habitat and the outside where you would do spacewalk, this would be kind of a test for the deep space gateway, that’s pretty cool!

Gavin Guy:Yeah.

Host: Alright! A lot of cool projects going on in building 9. Well, Gavin, thanks for coming on and telling us a little bit about what you do, this is awesome!

Gavin Guy:Yep! Thanks for having me!

Host: Of course.

Gavin Guy:Definitely.

[ Sound Effects ]

Host: Alright, that was awesome! I felt like I — I was riding on ARGOS while he was doing [laughing] — talking about that — that machine. So, Kai, who’s going to be our next guest?

Kai Harris: Next we have Mohammed Saibu, he’s a Flight Controller for the Exploration Mission Program, Orion Space Vehicle for EM1. Mohammed also has a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from Georgia Tech University.

Host: Alright! Producer Alex, bring us through the wormhole!

[ Sound Effects ]

Host: Okay, cool, Mohammed, thanks so much for coming on! So, you are working to become a flight controller for the Orion spacecraft, right?

Mohammed Saibu: Yes.

Host: So, I guess, there’s — there’s a lot of you, right? Is there a whole group of people training for this one mission, EM-1?

Mohammed Saibu:Yeah, so we have some of the past shuttle flight controllers coming back on board and now they’re transitioned to the exploration mission. And in addition to that, we have a new group of flight controller millennial generation that we all got hired around the same time. Some a few — a little bit — tad bit older than us, but I think we’re all in the same age range, and right now we’re all certifying this year, hopefully certified by the end of this year, to become flight controllers for the EM-1 mission.

Host: That’s awesome! Alright, so we got — I know, a couple friends of mine actually, are over doing flight controllers for International Space Station, but this is — this is a totally different thing, right? This is for the Orion spacecraft. So what is — what’s — what’s this EM-1 mission? What are you training for?

Mohammed Saibu:So the EM-1 mission is to fly Orion, I don’t think — a few people, if you are not aware of what Orion is, Orion is the next United States based vehicle that’s going to fly beyond earth’s orbit. Beyond — beyond earth’s low-earth orbit. And I think on the first mission, EM-1 is unmanned crew. So I think this is kind of testing Orion, and giving us a test high-level objective to see, okay, is it safe enough to put a crew on board? So I think — so EM-1 is the first mission, is scheduled to fly in 2019, followed by EM-2, we can talk about that later, but…

Host: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you’re training for multiple missions then or is it — are you training exclusively for — for exploration mission 1?

Mohammed Saibu:So, I think, so, right now, how the transition, speaking vaguely, but the goal is to train for EM-1 and you get certified for exploration. And hopefully you get grandfathered in for the future exploration mission, because you’ve done a rigorous training and hopefully they won’t fly too far apart.

Host: That’s right. Well, it’s — it’s kind of — so you’re training to — it’s called flight controllers, because you guys are monitoring all of these different components of the flight, of — of exploration, mission one. So, what — are you training for something specific or are you training to have a more broad aspect of — of flight controlling, what’s — what’s your training like?

Mohammed Saibu:So I think, so it’s a myriad of things if you really talk about that, because it’s not only focusing on one technical aspect, of course like monitoring the vehicle, understanding what’s going on as it relates to spaceflight, but also getting some of the soft — soft skill that you don’t really practice on a daily basis as being concise and talking to a lead director, making sure that you get across certain information, and you don’t give the excessive details. So I think, so some more of an overall perspective from [inaudible] not only as an engineer, on a technical basis, but also as a concise interpreter to talk to people. So I think, so…

Host: Yeah.

Mohammed Saibu:Both sides — both sides of the ballgame, or the coin.

Host: Yeah, and then it’s pretty translatable, so you can, I guess that would be translatable to future missions. So if you train for exploration mission 1, you’d be able to say, okay, I can do similar operations for — for another exploration mission because you get these — these skills. So you’re training to become a flight dynamics officer, right?

Mohammed Saibu:Yeah, the FIDO.

Host: Okay, so what’s FIDO?

Mohammed Saibu:So, FIDO, I think, so, the FIDO is the flight — it’s the flight position, it was really exclusive for shuttle when we were flying in the shuttle days, but our primary purpose is to monitor the vehicle from launch all the way back to entry. And by monitoring, we’re monitoring, where is the vehicle’s position? The velocity, making sure we’re in the right velocity. The orientation of the vehicle, just make sure that it’s dynamically suitable for flight, wherever we’re positioned, from — all the way from launch, even prelaunch, I think, so we verify a lot of things, like not going to go into the technical stuff, like the loads on the vehicle, to the launching of the vehicle, to even on orbit, and final reentry when we come back down.

Host: Okay, so, I mean, there’s a lot of different things to monitor. So the FIDO is monitoring site, it sounds like more location, right? Where is it? And then you’re reporting to the room, this is where it is, right? Okay, and then the velocity, make sure it’s the right speed, because all of this is planned ahead of time, right? All of this is, at this point, it’s going to be at this velocity, and things like that, right?

Mohammed Saibu:Yeah, to a given extent. I think, plus or minus, of course, like nothing ever goes as planned. You can — you have seen that in the flight world and the space world, of course. We protect, to a certain extent, plus or minus, we predict us to be able to discern velocity to make it there, but…

Host: Yeah, and just — just talking to different flight controllers, it seems like one of the hardest aspects of becoming a flight controller is not so much everything goes according to plan, it’s preparing for, if something were to go wrong, this is what you would do, right? So you are — are you training in simulations where something goes wrong and you have to sort of…

Mohammed Saibu:Yeah.

Host: Yeah.

Mohammed Saibu:So, I think, so a lot of that we’ve been doing now, so, I think, so, we’re not as far ahead as ISS going on, where they can have a lot of integrated sims for multiple people, so, right now, each division or each discipline are having internal sims, like we have paper sims right now, and the focus of the paper sims, it’s not only on learning the technical tool that you use everyday, but making sure that communication, like the soft skills that you’ve talked about are appropriate, where you — you talk to your flight or your — the flight director, whoever you’re reporting to, and you’re concise, you give them what information they need to know at that time. Of course, you can talk for as long as you want to, but sometimes a lot of the information, it’s not necessary. So I think, so being more concise, learning the protocol and how to talk on the flight. I think, so it’s definitely a protocol to talk on the flight. And, to be honest, like, I’m sure you know about it in talking to your friends that are flight controllers now. The hardest part about being flight controllers is not learning the technical stuff, but it’s really showing that you have the discipline and some of the soft skills in talking — on talking on a loops. That that’s where a lot of people just get wind out.

Host: Yeah. Yeah! Because if, you know, you have to make sure you’re communicating! That’s the whole point of mission control is to make sure everyone is talking to each other and everyone is aware of the situation and things like that. Making sure that you have a great relationship, I guess with your fellow flight controllers, right?

Mohammed Saibu:Completely agree. I think, so the relationship is key, and that’s what we try to build upon in the preflights, and I — people from the shuttle day, they’ve been talking to the older, more tenured flight controllers there. That was one thing they focused on, I think, so, leading up to flight, it’s not only getting to know your tools, knowing your flight rules and how you operate the vehicle, but knowing the people that you work with, and knowing how — not knowing them like the back of your hand, like a [inaudible], but just knowing the soft skills there, learning soft skills, learning what you need to improve on. So, because they tell you, by the time it comes to flight, you guys are more of a family. You guys are more of a family and you know how each person operates there. So, I completely agree with you on that. So that’s one of the main things that we try to focus on.

Host: So, during your training, are you sitting with I guess a shuttle expert, a shuttle FIDO? Is a shuttle FIDO kind of training you and telling you all of these, like, literally saying, this is how — these are the soft skills you need, these are the skills you need. Do you have like a mentor in this whole process?

Mohammed Saibu:Yes. I think, so, that’s one thing I love about my division and where I work in the FIDO group, and I think so it’s a dynamic division there. We’re fortuitous enough to have a lot of, an ample amount, of FIDOs who have served in the shuttle days, and even some people who serve — who worked some of the first few shuttle missions.

Host: Alright!

Mohammed Saibu:Shuttle missions. So, I think, so, we’re just fortuitous enough to just gain all that knowledge there, and, of course, every new FIDO is given a more tenured FIDO as a mentor there. So they work with them and we have weekly, weekly to monthly meetings, up to each individual, to just learn, soak the lessons learned that they had in their earlier day then try to transition it to what we’re — we’re expecting to face there. So, yes.

Host: Yeah.

Mohammed Saibu:So it’s just been a great opportunity.

Host: So what things have changed, just between a FIDO that was training during the shuttle days, and now for this new future exploration, of — of exploration mission 1. I’m sure technology has progressed, I’m sure that maybe there’s been lessons learned along the way that have changed, what are some of those changes?

Mohammed Saibu:So, of course, I think, so, anybody can say this along the lines, just even looking at it, technology is completely different.

Host: Yeah.

Mohammed Saibu:We have so much now that they didn’t have that day. The training flow is a tad bit more condensed, just because of the timeline, of course. We try not to be because with shuttle they had sims back-to-back, they had so much time, and an ample of people to just like train close, so, you really got tested. Versus now with explorations, you know, we’re trying to do the best that we can. Like I told you before, a lot of the training is not as advanced as ISS or shuttle was back in the day, we’re trying to build it up, built it on the go, but still keep that detail, sense of detail, to make — ensuring that everybody’s trained appropriately, and we’re not putting someone who is inappropriately trained on flight there, because, of course, it’s the best of the best. If you can’t talk on the loops, or if you don’t know the technical material, you will not fly.

Host: Yeah.

Mohammed Saibu:So, as far as changes, I think, sort of technology is one, I think so the training material is another one, of course, and increasing training material, you have to make sure everyone’s confident, even the older FIDOs have to make sure — come along with technology there, and the timing, the timing is more shorter than before there, so. [Inaudible] I could say, so, I think, so, as far as technology and timeline.

Host: Yeah, wow. A lot of changes, but it seems like, you know, you have so much mentorship and so much experience with you that it’s, I guess you can say it’s a little bit easier, maybe, because yes, this is a new — a new type of mission, a new form of exploration, but it — you can take some of those lessons from the Apollo days, you can take some of those lessons from — from the shuttle days, and kind of fit it, all this experience, into this mission, and then it’s kind of comforting to know that whenever this mission flies, you’re going to have, like you said, the best of the best in that room monitoring the spacecraft as it goes. So who else is — is in the room? So you’ve got a FIDO, FIDO is monitoring the vehicle itself, what other — what other console positions are there for EM-1?

Mohammed Saibu:So, I think, so, in — in addition to FIDO, a lot of, so I think, so a lot of the console positions are just as similar to shuttle, just as similar to shuttle, such as we have someone responsible for GNC, Guidance Navigation Control, we have a prop guide [inaudible] officer, we have thermal guys there, so a lot of — a lot of the flight controllers in shuttle mimic our — the same supporting Orion. We have a landing support officer, like I told you, we have the different — we have [inaudible] and FIDO for the launch, then we have orbit ones, then we have an entry one, three different positions, three different disciplines. You have the flight director who kind of coordinates everything with them and all of the flight controllers report to the flight director to give him a — a report on the status there, and he kind of siphons that information to direct what’s going on there. And, yeah, we have a PA guy, public affairs guy, who’s always there, you know, just to make sure that we get everything. We have doctors there, doctors and surgeons to talk to the astronauts there. We have a power guy there, so, I think, so, those are just like — like I said — like I said, I could go on for days on the positions there [Gary laughing], I think, so, in summary, we have close to the same amount of flight controllers in the shuttle days, position wise, as for exploration.

Host: So how about EFT-1, exploration flight test 1 that we flew back in, is — it was 2014, right, December 5th, 2014? Is a lot of those the same console positions for EM-1?

Mohammed Saibu:Yeah, a lot of them for the same console position for EM-1. So, I think, so like I said, exploration flight test was, like what you said, the flight test to see how things operate post the shuttle, so there, so, yeah, so a lot of positions are the same. Some more, I think a few got added on more, I can’t tell you specifically, not to my knowledge, but I think so. A lot of them are the same.

Host: Okay. Okay. So, how about the — the training and the simulations? Are those, I mean, they sound rigorous, are they really tough?

Mohammed Saibu:Yeah, they’re really tough, like I said, prior to going to it, you go through a rigorous amount of training because even prior to these paper sims, or our simulations that we do go through, the same scrutiny is applied there versus that, you know, you have your mentors and you work with your team there, but if your mentor or your team lead doesn’t feel that you’re ready to be put in the sim there, you will not be put in the sim. Of course, you — you fly how you train, you fly how you train, so if you’re not putting in the work to train or show your proficiency or your excellence there, you’re not going to be put in that seat to flight there. So, we take the same mentality versus training. So if you’re not ready to be put in a sim, they’re not going to put you in the sim in there. So, on that aspect, it is rigorous training, because it kind of puts a lot of responsibility on the individual, like myself there, to make sure that I not only know the technical stuff, but I’m also working on my communication, make sure I’m concise, and that — you can do that to various outlets where, you know, you see these ISS flight controllers, and a lot of us, we sometimes just shadow the ISS flight controllers, like, can we just sit down with you and hear how you talk, how you talk to flight directors there, and just pick up little stuff and ask questions, like, why would you ask this? So, I agree with you. So, the training and the sims are very rigorous, like I said, they try to make sure that you’re the top of the top before you — they put you in that seat for sims because I think so leading up to that is training for flight.

Host: Yeah, yeah, well, you know, man, I can — I can hear your passion, as you’re explaining this, and I think you’re going to be in the room with the best of the best, for sure. Alright, so before — before I let you go, I would — I do want to ask, what is going to — is going to change between EM1 and EM-2? I know the major thing is that’s going to be a crewed mission, right?

Mohammed Saibu:Yeah.

Host: Yeah. So, besides that, besides, of course, training the crew, that adds on a whole other level of…

Mohammed Saibu:Complexity.

Host: Yeah, not a — yeah, so many words that you could apply to complexity, but not only that, kind of the design of the vehicle is changing a tad bit. It’s like now we’ll be flying on EUS, EUS I think, so that’s a more upper stage vehicle. So, you kind of have to train your mentality on your structure, how you — how you tackle — how you tackle flight, how you tackle flight, and more constraints are added to, really more constraints are added that you have to be aware of when you’re flying there. Like I said, I want to — I — the reason why I’m hesitant is because I want to talk more technical stuff, but then, again, I know the audience is probably just going to get lost in the words there. So, lost in the words there. So, I think, so just adding too is more risk and more constraints to the vehicle there. So those are the two things that will majorly change for EM-1 — from EM1 to EM2 that we have to be cognizant about.

Mohammed Saibu:A lot of challenges ahead! But I’m glad that you’re the person that’s going to be tackling. Mohammed, thanks so much for coming on and explaining what you do and those great missions that we are looking forward to.

Host: Thank you so much, Gary, thank you for taking time to interview me.

Mohammed Saibu:No problem, man!

[ Sound Effects ]

Host: Alright, awesome! Can’t wait for EM-1. We have one more to go, who’s our last guest.

Kai Harris: Okay, last is Macresia Alibaruho, she’s the Deputy Division Chief of Business and Information System Services in Human Health and Performance.

Host: Alright, quite a mouth — mouthful [laughing]. Yeah, alright, let’s go right ahead to that talk, she had a great conversation about leadership and her — her — her experiences there and how she translates those skills, so, Alex, take us through that final wormhole!

[ Sound Effects ]

Host: Macresia, thanks so much for — for coming on. You have an interesting story of kind of moving around and — and transferring these skills from one place to another. So, where did you start here?

Macresia Alibaruho: I started my career quite many years ago, in the 90’s, in the mid-90’s. I started out as an ISS flight controller before we were even flying ISS, so I had the privilege in — at that time, to become one of the very first mission control specialists for my system, for data systems. So that’s how I started my career here at NASA.

Host: Alright! What’s — what was data systems? What were you focusing on?

Macresia Alibaruho: Focusing on computer networks and all of the software onboard the International Space Station. Because we built the space station as a puzzle or in pieces, it was a very huge undertaking to perform all of the upgrades needed to continue to expand the ISS.

Host: Because it was constantly changing.

Macresia Alibaruho: Right. So, as ISS was changing, so was software changing, so was hardware changing, so with every module we were bringing on new networks and new computers and we were upgrading and expanding the communications and data systems as — as we went. So our responsibility was to make sure that all the upgrades took place, and those upgrades, we upgraded the ground because we didn’t have any big storage devices on — on board at that time, it’s different now. So we had to orchestrate everything from the ground. So it was a lot of ground testing, a lot of integration with other centers, KSC, Marshal, of course here in Houston with her contractors. So it was a really great opportunity to work with international partners and so many people. I never would have imagined that I would have worked with a number of people and the different types of people that I worked with that early on in my career. So, it was a good — a good experience for me.

Host: Definitely! And then it sounds like though, your role, being trained as one of the first flight controllers to look at data systems, it kind of gave you this new perspective that you could pass onto others. So that’s kind of where you transition to — were you mentoring and training and that sort of thing?

Macresia Alibaruho: Absolutely! I think you hit the nail right on the head. It was almost you’re a specialist in your area, but you really were expected to transfer that knowledge to enable that consistency of cognizance, and, you know, that high degree of technical competency to others who were coming on later. So I quickly had to learn some key leadership skills.

Host: [Laughing] Alright, so then you — like now you’re training some people and you’re — you’re developing these leadership skills, I’m guessing people to notice that, right?

Macresia Alibaruho: Absolutely! I had some very good mentors early on. I would say that my first branch chief that I had, he was an amazing leader. He taught me to pay attention, not only to what’s going on technically, but to also understand and develop some understanding of culture and what’s working in the organization, what doesn’t work in the organization, who’s excelling in the organization, so he really gave me some insight on how to get stronger as a leader, and he just helped me in that working all together. So, that — that really helped me, just as a stepping stone to where I would continue on later.

Host: So would you say that the mission control and the flight control has kind of its own culture?

Macresia Alibaruho: It really does. It’s a very interesting place. It’s quite amazing, by the way, and anyone that’s ever worked in the front room in mission control will tell you, there’s really nothing like it.

Host: Wow.

Macresia Alibaruho: There — the communication scheme is tailored for that room. The energy in the room is — is — it has its own energy, you can feel it when you — when you walk into the room, but it’s very — very technical, and yet it’s very formal, and it has a caring feel to it, because you’re there to take care of that vehicle and ultimately to make sure that the crew succeeds.

Host: Yeah.

Macresia Alibaruho: And that ownership, in it’s your responsibility. And when you’re in that chair, if something happens that’s related to your system, you have nowhere to deflect. It’s your responsibility, so you have to have that component of leadership, ownership, to be able to sit in the chair and make the decisions to help the mission succeed.

Host: Right, this culture of accountability, but also collaboration, because, yes, you’re responsible for that system, but you have so many people helping you.

Macresia Alibaruho: Absolutely. And you have to draw on the expertise of everyone in the room while respecting that, of course, the flight director is the ultimate decision maker.

Host: Alright. So, what are some of those cultural elements that — that you sort of pass on and — and — when you’re mentoring others, what — what sorts of advice and tips do you give them to help them succeed in that environment?

Macresia Alibaruho: Well, definitely, you hit on one of them, accountability is one of the most important things, being present, being accurate, having quality work, being timely, and certainly if you do not understand, ask the questions early on so that you don’t get to the end of your training flow or to the — to the most important parts and not have the information or knowledge that you need. So I would say accountability is one thing, and establishing your network too, as well. None of us can do this together, it takes — alone, it takes teamwork. This is a huge team effort, and to think that you can do it alone is incorrect in this environment, so, certainly encouraging people to rely on the team, various people have different expertise, so identify what those expertise are, and lean on those people so that you can get stronger in those areas. So accountability and — and teamwork. Also, technical competency. You have to have a certain degree of technical competence in the environment to really survive and really be seen as a contributor in the team. So you have to then know yourself, identify your strengths, identify what drives you, try to understand what — try to find something in your system or something around that really interests you, that you have a passion about, so that you become really, really good at doing that one thing so that you can then shine. So those are just a couple of things I always share with people. And then one important thing I always share with them is to keep the lines of communication open with your team and especially with your management. I often tell people that your managers are very busy, I’m busy a lot, but it doesn’t hurt for you to sometimes come in and let me know what you’re doing for me.

Host: Yes. Yes, that kind of openness. Right? Because it’s that team environment translates to just the communication within the organization, as well, not just in the room. Do you find yourself kind of transferring these skills to your personal life too? Because it sounds like they’re very transferable, this idea of open communication.

Macresia Alibaruho: That’s funny that you would ask that, because I, you know, my husband used to work here, and he was actually the first African American flight director that we ever had here at NASA Quad C, [inaudible]. So, yeah, and I worked with him on console, believe it or not, as a — an Odin officer. And so I worked with him on console, but, you know, we often have a conversation that some of the leadership tenets and skills that we learn here at NASA, we use them in our day-to-day lives.

Host: Yeah, yeah!

Macresia Alibaruho: We really do, and rearing our children, that accountability, responsibility, I’m constantly talking to them about being a team player, being accountable, you know, [laughing] and — and making great decision making. I’m constantly talking to my son who is 11-years-old about how important it is to own it and really be transparent. So, absolutely, yes, I do that.

Host: You have to do it! This works in mission control, you have to do it! [Laughter] So this — it sounds like you’ve taken these skills and sort of just, you — you learn them, you develop them, you know, now you’re bringing them into your own lives. Is that — you kind of — then you started transferring to other places and bringing these skills to all different parts of JSC, right? So where — where did you go next after — after this data systems flight controller?

Macresia Alibaruho: I was data systems team led, I became than a branch chief in the same area. What was interesting about that branch chief assignment, I became a branch — I was a station flight controller at first, and when I became a branch chief, I was a branch chief in the data systems are, and, at that time, we had both shuttle and station component. So, I was very familiar with shuttle because of my experience in assembly in building the International Space Station, however, I’ve never managed a shuttle team before. So that was somewhat of a — of a challenge for me. But the leadership aspects of the job, I learned very quickly, the leadership aspects of the job were very similar.

Host: Huh.

Macresia Alibaruho: There were just some key things I needed to understand about processes and the way things worked and the shuttle culture to really help me be a better leader for them. But leading people, the keys for leadership work, no matter what team you’re leading.

Host: There you go! You just take the same leadership skills and apply them to…okay, how does this culture work? What is this team like? How can I kind of insert myself into this world and let them trust me and kind of guide them?

Macresia Alibaruho: Absolutely.

Host: Alright! So then you, again, you’re rocketing right up, you’re a branch chief now.

Macresia Alibaruho: I was branch chief for data systems, I’ve been moved over [chuckling] — we — you know, we like to reorg here at NASA, so we re-org’d and what we did, we saw that shuttle was going to be ending soon, so a few years prior to that, we wanted to get out in front of that in mission operations and create opportunities for people to do, cross pollinate and do other things, so that when shuttle retired, that they would have different skills. So, what we did is we combined flight control and training. They were two separate organizations, but we put them together. And so then my new organization brought the astronaut trainers and flight control trainers, and along with — with flight controllers. Now, it’s all the business of flight operations, but they’re different perspectives from a training or instructing perspective, and you’ve got the flight control perspective there, and you have shuttle and station. So, I took the role over in the communications and data systems for station. But in that role, it was ISS, all ISS, but training in flight control. And so I did that, same thing, using some of the same skills, learning some new skills to go along with it, because the big challenge in that one is a lot of change going on, and people were concerned about the shuttle retirement. So, I had to quickly develop trust of the team and I used a lot of transparency in working with that team. I found that just telling that what I knew really, really helped to keep the team gelled together and with the other leadership skills. And from there, I went off to headquarters, and I did an — a temporary assignment in a program assessment area, and that was an amazing opportunity. I got a chance to work with some of the high-level leaders, AAs, I sat on the APMC, took notes for the APMC at the agency level, and it really gave me a perspective of what funnels from JSC and other — other centers up to headquarters. So, while that was somewhat of a, I call it I was a glorified secretary assignment. It really exposed me to the matters that were discussed, the behaviors of the top level leaders, of the agency, the big concerns that were being worked, and I had the privilege of being there when constellation was being discussed and decisions were being made.

Host: I see.

Macresia Alibaruho: So, I saw a lot. I heard a lot. I learned a lot.

Host: Okay!

Macresia Alibaruho: In that experience, and then I came back here to the center, after a year of doing that, and I accepted a rotational assignment over in the OCFO, and I was the Deputy Division Chief for the central budget office, so I learned more about budgets and how money funnels into this center, and I worked with — with that team to help resolve some — somethings that were going on in the team, help improve some processes, so I was really proud of my support that I provided to that area. And when — after that assignment was over, MOD, at the time, which is now FOD, offered me an assignment to go over to the electrical power system, I was there for three years, and then I moved over to environmental systems to help with some leadership challenges that were there, and I just [laughing] — sounds like I’m just — I’m moving around, but…

Host: They wanted you to move so you can fix it!

Macresia Alibaruho: I spent four years in the environmental systems, and when things started feeling like they were running smoothly, I think I started getting a little bit bored. And so, I feel like I needed another challenge.

Host: Yeah, fix it, move on.

Macresia Alibaruho: And so I moved on, I took a — I applied for and was selected at the Deputy Division Chief of the Business and Information Systems over here in Human Health and Performance.

Host: Alright, and that’s your current role right now?

Macresia Alibaruho: That is my current role.

Host: And it’s brand new for the journey! Wow, what a journey! It sounds like — that’s what it sounds like, it sounds like you went to — you went to an area, you kind of developed this system of leadership and here’s how things are working, and then kind of made it run efficiently, and then you moved on and you fixed another area. So those — those, like you said, I think the big takeaway here is those — those leadership skills are transferable. They are extremely transferable.

Macresia Alibaruho: I think they transfer to any industry, it really is its own competency. I heard, we had a directorate chief many years ago, his name was Allen [assumed spelling] [inaudible], and he presented himself as a leadership expert. I never really heard that before, and that sort of rang with me, and he really instilled in us that while technical is important and it is, and we are all to be, you know, technically-competent, leadership is also important, and running a business and being a leader in an organization. It’s as important as your technical.

Host: Wow, okay. So, before I let you go, I do want to pick your brain for one big leadership tip that you’ve taken with you from place to place. What is one of the, maybe a strategy or just an approach, that makes your leadership technique successful?

Macresia Alibaruho: Okay, I think transparency is important. Often communic — I don’t really have an agenda. So, there’s no hidden agenda. But there — if there are things, if there are elephants in the room, if there are things that we need to correct and — and proved, I’ll be very honest with the team about, you know, about things that we need to — to improve, in a transparent way. So building that trust with your team, being very transparent, is very important. I think how you start with the team is really, really important. And one of my logos is, you know, together, everyone achieves more, and that’s team.

Host: Yes. And you need trust to have a successful team. Fantastic! Macrecia, thank you so much for coming on and telling your story and giving me some great leadership tips. Amazing. Such a great story, and — and an amazing career. Thanks for coming on.

Macresia Alibaruho: Thank you!

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Host: Alright, Kai, thanks so much for coming on the podcast today and helping me to put this together, introduce our guests. This is kind of cool because it’s — it’s a brand new format. We see a mashup of all these different areas, and it kind of gives you this nice snapshot of everything going on at the center. So, you know, all of these things going on at once. So, thanks, again, for helping me to put this together!

Kai Harris: Thank you! And it was an amazing experience, and we hope everyone learned something today.

Host: Definitely.

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Host: Hey, thanks for sticking around! So, thanks, again, to Kai for kind of helping bring this together for this special episode for African American History Month. Great celebration, and I’m glad we have employee resource groups here on center to help us celebrate that. So if you want to know more about what’s going on here at center, that’s nasa.gov/johnson, you can see all of our various events that we have going on here at the center, otherwise, you can follow us on social media. Per usual, the NASA Johnson Space Center accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Facebook it’s, NASA Johnson Space Center, Twitters, it’s @NASA_Johnson, and Instagram is @nasajohnson. You can use the hashtag, ask NASA, on any one of those platforms to submit an idea for the show and we’ll make sure to either make a whole episode out of it or maybe we’ll answer it on a future episode of Houston, We Have A Podcast, just make sure to mention it’s for the show. So the credits for today, this podcast was recorded on January 31, 2018. Thanks to Alex Perryman, Kelly Humphries, and Kai Harris for helping to put this together! And thanks again to all of our guests for coming on the show, Antja Chambers, Gavin Guy, Mohammed Saibu, and Macresia Alibaruho. We’ll see you next week!