February 26, 2010 Vol. 3, Issue 2
“NASA Missions: Engineering Enabling Exploration” provides core knowledge about key NASA missions — past, present, and future.
NASA missions have sought answers to some of the grandest questions that humans have considered. How was the Earth formed? Can we send robots and humans to the moon and Mars? Are there other forms of life in the universe?
These missions have resulted in accomplishments that were unfathomable at any earlier time in human history. Rovers roam Mars, and many spacecraft have explored other planets and their moons. Humans have walked on the moon and lived in low-Earth orbit for years at a time. Deep space observatories have traveled to the edge of the solar system and provided glimpses of the physical history of the universe.
The future promises still greater opportunities for exploration. Missions that are underway or in development will visit Pluto, explore the oceans of Jupiter’s moon Europa, and eventually lead to the retrieval of soil samples from Mars.
“NASA Missions: Engineering Enabling Exploration,” a new three-day engineering course offered by the NASA Academy of Program/Project & Engineering Leadership, presents detailed synopses of key NASA missions, focusing on past accomplishments, current undertakings, and potential future endeavors as seen from engineering, scientific, historical, and human perspectives. It is designed for NASA engineers and technicians who want to gain an overall understanding of NASA’s “engineering in the service of exploration.”
Participants will recognize how the driving forces behind agency-wide successes are more than science and analytics, and how innovation, teamwork, persistence, and passion are key components of an engineer’s daily work. The goal is for attendees to learn to apply these insights in their own daily thinking.
Space historian and journalist Andrew Chaikin, author of A Man on the Moon and A Passion for Mars, designed and teaches “NASA Missions” for the Academy. Chaikin, who served as a summer intern at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory during the Viking program’s first Mars landings, has seen the hard work of space exploration up close. “One of the things that excites me so much in telling the story of space exploration is that it’s not just the experience of exploration and what we discover. Those are obviously at the top of the list, but right up there with that is the engineering ingenuity and passion on display in every one of those exploration missions,” he says. “That is one of those things that makes space exploration so inspiring. It’s really an example of what’s best in us as human beings.”
The course will enable participants to understand and communicate the history and the engineering successes of major NASA human and robotic missions, and discuss future missions, technical challenges, and associated timelines. It will also help participants examine the rationale and importance of the nation’s civil space program, including its significance for education, exploration, the economy, and long-term survivability.
“This course provides a context that helps our engineers understand how their engineering abilities fit into the big picture of NASA’s space exploration vision,” says Roger Forsgren, Deputy Director of the NASA Academy for Program/Project & Engineering Leadership. “It pulls it all together in a way that is both concise and engaging to technical professionals, and hopefully will leave them with a sense of pride in the work they do for the agency and mankind.”
The initial offering of “NASA Missions” will take place this spring at Marshall Space Flight Center.
