A Brief Pause From The Ordinary..., Demographics time--please just humor me |
A Brief Pause From The Ordinary..., Demographics time--please just humor me |
Apr 18 2005, 01:52 AM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 24 Joined: 17-April 05 Member No.: 236 |
I just joined this community last night, and I'm just curious about some of the people here. I'm only 19 years old, but I'm more interested in all things space than anyone I've ever met. Just out of curiosity, what are people's ages in this forum?
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Apr 18 2005, 07:45 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 753 Joined: 23-October 04 From: Greensboro, NC USA Member No.: 103 |
48, red-headed MWF professional seeking... Oh, yeah, wrong forum.
One of my earliest memories: seeing Echo I (HUGE 100-ft. diameter mylar balloon) inflated a hangar in North Carolina in 1960, and then watching it fly overhead several months later. (see Echo I) I was avidly interested in space ever since then. I remember watching Alan Shepard's flight, Ed White's spacewalk, and seeing the photos from the Mariners and Rangers come in on TV. I was in Okinawa in elementary school when Gemini VIII (with Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott) made its emergency landing near there. On a 8th-grade school tour of the Smithsonian's Silver Hill aircraft restoration facility, I was introduced to a man at the Smithsonian who had heard from my teacher that I was one of the most space-savvy kids he knew. The guy had 4 Lunar Orbiter photos of the moon that he couldn't identify. To help him out, I earned money by doing odd chores (like chopping wood) so I could save up to buy what was then NASA's only book of Lunar Orbiter photos and thereby identify the pictures for the fellow. (Wish I had had the Internet and the helpful folks in this forum back then!!!) I asked him if he could recommend me for a tour guide position at the National Air & Space Museum, and I then became the youngest tour guide there. One of my favorite experiences there was watching the Apollo 16 moonwalks and film-retrieval spacewalk in the NASM library with Michael Collins, Apollo 11 Command Module Pilot, who was at that time the NASM director. Went to Carnegie-Mellon for a year, hoping to become a physicist or astronomer, but I wasn't able to cope with being a good student but still not being able to get my mind around some of the weirdness of physics. Had my first professional brush with the space program 11 years later as the Contracts Manager on one of Boeing's contracts with NASA for what was then called Space Station Freedom, the predecessor of what eventually became ISS. Worked on a project to design a mentoring process at NASA Headquarters last year, and had the pleasure of interviewing Orlando Figueroa, who was heading up the Mars program...so that was my closest brush with MER, shaking the hand of a guy who had touched MER hardware. I work now as an organizational effectiveness consultant and leadership coach in multinational companies. I live in Reston, Virginia, 7 miles from the final resting place of Space Shuttle Enterprise, which I visit regularly. When I'm not surfing unmannedspaceflight.com, I am a semi-professional singer. I am president of The Washington Chorus and have been on two Grammy-winning CDs. Last night I sang in a program at the Kennedy Center and met Julie Andrews!! Cheers, Jonathan -------------------- Jonathan Ward
Manning the LCC at http://www.apollolaunchcontrol.com |
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