A Brief Pause From The Ordinary..., Demographics time--please just humor me Options

[SFJCody]

I'm a 23 year old ex-student and part-time lazybones living in Farnborough, Hampshire. In october I will be a grad student.

[Roby72]

I´m now 33 and my interest in space mission goes back to Voyager 1 and its encounter with Saturn in Nov. 1980. I was only 8 by this time. This inspired me so much that I want to have a telescope to see this planet and the other ones with my own eye. My grandfather did fulfil my dream then !
In the following years I develop techniques in photographing the planets and stars (deep sky) with my telescope and camera (later digital) and have much success in it.
In normal live I construct parts for escalators as an engineer.
I live in Vienna/Austria and also like classical music.

[Guest_Edward Schmitz_*]

I'm a 41 year old software engineer. I write software to control chambers of various sorts. I have a keen interest in planetary exploration.

My biggest claim to fame (with regard to this group) is that I actually saw MER being assembled at JPL. I was there to automate another chamber that was in the high bay with MER. The chamber is being used for the SIM mission. It was one of the greatest thrills of my life. I was no more than 30 feet from one of the vehicles. In fact, one of the people working on the rover came over to my group and pointed to the back shell that was behind us. He said we were TOO close to it and asked us to move farther away. I was actually TOO close to MER.

I have been following the mission closely since then. I only recently discovered this forum after the article on spacedaily.com referrenced it. I am very impressed with the quality of the posts. Thanks to all of you.

[Jeff7]

As I hang my head in shame, I'll reveal my place of employment, and job.

Overnight stocker at Walmart.
There, I said it.

I do hope to get back to college this year for engineering, probably mechanical or industrial. I hope it's the right line of work; I've always been good at fixing things I know nothing about. And then there's my Scanner PC project. I don't know if that shows skill or a mental illness, but there it is.
I already did 2 years at a community college, for Cisco networking. It turned out to be programming though, just on routers. I can't stand programming. That, and I'm like Michael in Office Space, for those who have seen it. Always missing some mundane detail - and when you're working on securing a network, that's not a good thing.
Oh yeah, I'm 23.

[Nix]

29, father of two children and two big displays; just to look at Mars and getting something out of it. I sleep about 4-5 hours a day between children and Mars. I do not work at this moment, I'm too busy with Mars.
Nice to meet y'all too!
Oh and I live in Belgium, that little country somewhere in Europe.
I'm having a beer in my hand right now.
Cheers!

[avkillick]

Age : 42 Occupation: SW Engineer
Location: Mesa, AZ
Online status: Lurker
Vision for Mars: Advanced robotic explorers paving the way for human explorers with
in-site resource utilitization, habitat construction and general infrastructure development.
If man goes to Mars - he should stay. I don't want a repeat of the moon missions. If someone
in 1972 said we would not visit the moon again before 2015, they would have been laughed at -
but it's a sad and true fact.

[DEChengst]

Oh and I live in Belgium, that little country somewhere in Europe.
I'm having a beer in my hand right now.

Newton would have said:

"The size of Belgium is inverse to the proportion of the greatness of its beer."

[mhoward]

I'm a 34-year old software engineer and occasional Zen student. I created some Mars viewing software because I wanted to see Mars in 3D, and because my day job is frustrating as all git-out (hi, guys!).

> As I hang my head in shame, I'll reveal my place of employment, and job.

No shame in having a day job.

Wow, there sure are a lot of software engineers on here.

[ilbasso]

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

[dvandorn]

As I hang my head in shame, I'll reveal my place of employment, and job.

Overnight stocker at Walmart.
There, I said it.

Nothing to be ashamed of, Jeff. It's honest work. What else can you ask of someone?

I'm 49, going on 16... I'm a career technical writer / documentation specialist / training developer / what-have-you, and since a) the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the continuing economic recession here in America (especially in the IT industry), I'm working as a manager at a Pizza Hut.

For now.

As I said, there's never any shame in doing honest work.

My first memories include astronauts, Mercury capsules and Sputnik satellites. I recall watching Ranger IX coverage on live TV -- for the *very first time*, you could watch on your TV as live pictures from the Moon flashed by.

I was hooked.

1969 was my favorite year. Of my entire life. Not just because of Apollo, but also because of Mariners 6 and 7.

I want to see new horizons, new vistas. I want to see what's beyond every horizon -- and I want to see all of the different horizons that are out there.

I guess I'm just a sense-of-wonder junkie...

-the other Doug

[nasaman58]

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?

Well, I started this discussion I never said what I do. I'm 19, like I said, and I'm a sophomore physics major. I'd like to go to grad school to earn a Ph.D. in astronomy or astrophysics. After some time racking up experience and maybe one or two master's degrees, I plan on applying to NASA's astronaut corp. Yeah, I know that sounds super ambitious, but I've wanted to be an astronaut since I was three, and I can't let go of my dream; I'm just too passionate.

It's been interesting to see what diversity we have in this forum. I'm actually a little surprised; I thought the ages would be a bit higher. The younger ages is encouraging, though; that means the inspiration of space hasn't been lost in the 1960s.

[imran]

I just turned 25 today (happy birthday to me )
I am an Electrical Engineer working on projects such as JIMO/Prometheus, CEV, Space Shuttle, etc in an aerospace company near Chicago. Being a part of some of these projects is a wonderful experience.

[dot.dk]

21 years old from Denmark
It is us who made the magnetic experiments that are on the rovers.

I finished High School last year and I'm now looking at what I can spend my future on

I'm very interessted in space and astronomy. I just started taking pictures with my telescope and digital camera. Need alot of practise though.

nasaman58 - Hope you ends up beeing the first on Mars

[nasaman58]

21 years old from Denmark
It is us who made the magnetic experiments that are on the rovers.

I finished High School last year and I'm now looking at what I can spend my future on 

I'm very interessted in space and astronomy. I just started taking pictures with my telescope and digital camera. Need alot of practise though. 

nasaman58 - Hope you ends up beeing the first on Mars

Thanks, dot.dk! Good luck in your future. Don't let up on your interest for astronomy/space!

[john_s]

Interesting to see all the masks coming off!

48 year old planetary scientist in Boulder, Colorado (but an enthusiastic amateur when it comes to Mars- the outer solar system is where I get paid). I've been a space nut since Apollo days. Actually even before that- I remember writing an essay about Jupiter when I was eight...