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By NASA
NASA and the military have shared strong connections since the agency’s early days. From the nation’s earliest aeronautic research and the recruitment of test pilot astronauts to modern-day technology development, satellite management, and planetary defense, NASA has built a longstanding partnership with the military.
This legacy of collaboration has created natural opportunities for former service members to join NASA’s ranks at the conclusion of their military careers.
Lewis Swain is one of the many veterans working at Johnson Space Center in Houston today. Swain was recruited by NASA contractor McDonnell Douglas after leaving the military in 1980. He commissioned as a second lieutenant and served in the Air Force for 12 years, flying nearly 200 combat missions during two tours in Vietnam.
“The shuttle program was starting, and they needed ex-military pilots to serve as simulation instructors,” he said. Swain specialized in control and propulsion systems instruction for several years before becoming the training team lead for shuttle missions. Following the Challenger accident in 1986, Swain transitioned to supporting the International Space Station Program and Return to Flight evaluations. He has been a civil servant since 1989 and a training facility manager since 2006.
L. Jerry Swain during his Air Force career (left) and as a facility manager at Johnson Space Center in Houston (right).Images courtesy of L. Jerry Swain NASA’s Pathways Internship Program has also provided a point of entry for former service members. John Smith was studying mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso when he made an impactful Johnson connection. “I met with a former flight director, Ms. Ginger Kerrick, at a career fair hosted by my university,” he said. “Pathways happened to be accepting applications at the time and she enthusiastically encouraged me to apply. I never expected to get a response, much less an offer. I couldn’t say yes fast enough when it came!”
For others, the NASA SkillBridge Program has been instrumental in transitioning from the military to civilian careers. The program connects individuals in their final months of military service with a NASA office or organization. SkillBridge fellows work anywhere from 90 to 180 days, contributing their unique skillsets to the agency while building their network and knowledge. Since fellows’ pay and benefits are provided by their military branch, their support comes at no additional cost to NASA.
Johnson hosted the agency’s first-ever SkillBridge fellow in spring 2019, paving the way for many others to follow. Albert Meza, an Air Force space professional, was among this first wave of service members at NASA.
Approaching retirement from the Air Force in November 2019, Meza planned to move his family back to Houston that summer, then join them in the fall once his military service ended. A colleague encouraged him to apply for SkillBridge because it would let Meza move with his family. Meza was skeptical, noting the military is not typically flexible on moves or timelines, but after a quick meeting with his commanding officer and finding a Johnson team to work with, he was on his way to Houston. “It was unbelievable,” he said. “It kind of fell into my lap.”
Albert Meza visits Johnson Space Center’s Space Vehicle Mockup Facility while serving in the Air Force (left) and receives an award from NASA astronaut Rex J. Walheim during his retirement ceremony at Space Center Houston (right). Images courtesy of Albert Meza Today Meza is a payload integration manager for NASA’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) program, working within the Exploration Architecture, Integration, and Science Directorate at Johnson. In this role, he acts as a liaison between payload teams and the vendor developing a lander to help ensure flight requirements are understood and met.
Meza is also one of SkillBridge’s on-site coordinators. He said that when he first arrived at Johnson, he realized the program was relatively unknown. “I thought, I need to take the responsibility for waving the flag for SkillBridge at NASA.” Meza works tirelessly to educate service members, military leaders, and NASA supervisors about the program’s benefits. He also emphasizes how easy it is for NASA supervisors to host a fellow. “You get someone for six months who is already disciplined, loyal, and has all of these highly trained credentials,” he said. “Any civil servant supervisor can host a SkillBridge fellow. The only real requirement is that the supervisor can provide IT assets and a work location.”
Johnson has hosted more than 25 SkillBridge fellows since the program’s inception. Many fellows have since accepted full-time positions with NASA, including Patricia “Trish” Elliston. Meza found her a SkillBridge position with the center’s Protective Services Division in spring 2023. Elliston relocated to Houston in 2020, a few years prior to her anticipated retirement from the U.S. Coast Guard. Living in Houston and interacting with numerous NASA employees, along with prior experience working with the agency in maritime safety, convinced Elliston that Johnson was the place for her.
Trish Elliston flies aboard an aircraft during a mission (left) and visits Johnson Space Center’s Space Vehicle Mockup Facility (right) while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard. Images courtesy of Trish Elliston “During my internship I networked as much as possible and made every effort to learn as much as I could so that I could be better prepared to start my civilian career,” Elliston said. “I worked hard and learned a lot, and when a job opportunity became available, I applied.” She now works as a cyber intelligence analyst within the Flight Operations Directorate.
Meza notes that SkillBridge is a transition program, not a hiring program, and that some fellows have not received a job offer or have decided to pursue other opportunities. What happens after a SkillBridge fellowship depends on each individual and whether they’ve demonstrated their potential and built relationships in a way that turns this ‘foot in the door’ into a full-time position.
Interested in becoming a SkillBridge fellow at NASA? Learn more about the program and submit your application here.
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By Space Force
A prototype F-16 Fight Falcon cockpit collapsible ladder for agile combat employment and contingency operations emerged as the 2024 Spark Tank winner at the Pentagon.
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By NASA
In August, the Association for Advancing Participatory Sciences (AAPS) announced a fellowship opportunity in partnership with the NASA Citizen Science Leaders Series. Fifty-five people applied! The applications came from graduate students and early career professionals in diverse disciplines, including astronomy, ecology, engineering, nursing, policy, and zoology, to name a few.
Sadie Coffin, AAPS-NASA Cit Sci Leaders Fellow. (Credit: Olivia Schlichtkrull)
We are delighted to announce that Sadie Coffin, PhD student and co-lead (alongside her advisor, Dr. Jeyhan Kartaltepe) of the Redshift Wrangler project, will serve as the AAPS-NASA Cit Sci Leaders Fellow. Sadie’s task is to curate resources, advice, and best practices on topics of common interest from four years of NASA Cit Sci Leaders events. Sadie will dig into our recordings to find the moments, speakers, advice, and resources that offer the best guidance for project leaders starting or managing projects. She’ll help package the best elements of the recordings into usable formats for busy scientists and project leaders interested in creating, managing, and improving participatory science projects.
“This fellowship offers a unique opportunity to gain the mentorship and expertise I need to build a career that not only advances research but also fosters public engagement and inclusivity in science,” said Sadie.
The enthusiasm, talent, and passion in the applications we received revealed the broad appeal, utility, and growing acceptance of participatory research. One applicant commented, “Working in the participatory sciences is how I find meaning in my career as a researcher.” Many others commented that they were eager to connect with mentors and colleagues who were as invested in this work as they were.
Thank you to everyone who applied for this fellowship and to all of the early career professionals working in this field. You are inspiring, and we can’t wait to see what big ideas you contribute to the growth of this field! AAPS will announce additional fellowships focused on different projects in the coming months. Please watch for upcoming calls, consider applying yourself, and share them with the inspiring early career individuals in your networks!
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Last Updated Nov 04, 2024 Related Terms
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Sols 4343-4344: Late Slide, Late Changes
NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Right Navigation Camera, showing the fractured rock target “Quarter Dome” just above and to the right of the foreground rover structure. The eastern wall of the Gediz Vallis channel can be seen in the distance. This image was taken on sol 4342 — Martian day 4,342 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — on Oct. 23, 2024, at 12:29:34 UTC. NASA/JPL-Caltech Earth planning date: Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024
Curiosity is driving along the western edge of the Gediz Vallis channel, heading for a good vantage point before turning westward and leaving the channel behind to explore the canyons beyond. The contact science for “Chuck Pass” on sol 4341 and backwards 30-meter drive (about 98 feet) on sol 4342 completed successfully.
This morning, planning started two hours later than usual. At the end of each rover plan is a baton pass involving Curiosity finishing its activities from the previous plan, transmitting its acquired data to a Mars-orbiting relay satellite passing over Gale Crater, and having that satellite send this data to the Deep Space Network on Earth. This dataset is crucial to our team’s decisions on Curiosity’s next activities. It is not always feasible for us to get our critical data transmitted before the preferred planning shift start time of 8 a.m. This leads to what we call a “late slide,” when our planning days start and end later than usual.
Today’s shift began as the “decisional downlink” arrived just before 10 a.m. PDT. The science planning team jumped into action as the data rolled in, completed plans for two sols of science activities, then had to quickly change those plans completely as the Rover Planners perusing new images from the decisional downlink determined that the position of Curiosity’s wheels after the drive would not support deployment of its arm, eliminating the planned use of APXS, MAHLI, and the DRT on interesting rocks in the workspace. However, the science team was able to pivot quickly and create an ambitious two-sol science plan for Curiosity with the other science instruments.
On sols 4343-4344, Curiosity will focus on examining blocks of finely layered or “laminated” bedrocks in its workspace. The “Backbone Creek” target, which has an erosion resistant vertical fin of dark material, will be zapped by the ChemCam laser to determine composition, and photographed by Mastcam. “Backbone Creek” is named for a stream in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada of California flowing through a Natural Research Area established to protect the endangered Carpenteria californica woodland shrub. Curiosity is currently in the “Bishop” quadrangle on our map, so all targets in this area of Mount Sharp are named after places in the Sierra Nevada and Owens Valley of California. A neighboring target rock, “Fantail Lake,” which has horizontal fins among its layers, will also be imaged at high resolution by Mastcam. This target name honors a large alpine lake at nearly 10,000 feet just beyond the eastern boundary of Yosemite National Park. A fractured rock dubbed “Quarter Dome,” after a pair of Yosemite National Park’s spectacular granitic domes along the incomparable wall of Tenaya Canyon between Half Dome and Cloud’s Rest, will be the subject of mosaic images for both Mastcam and ChemCam RMI to obtain exquisite detail on delicate layers across its broken surface (see image). The ChemCam RMI telescopic camera will look at light toned rocks on the upper Gediz Vallis ridge. Curiosity will also do a Navcam dust devil movie and mosaic of dust on the rover deck, then determine dust opacity in the atmosphere using Mastcam.
Following this science block, Curiosity will drive about 18 meters (about 59 feet) and perform post-drive imaging, including a MARDI image of the ground under the rover. On sol 4344, the rover will do Navcam large dust devil and deck surveys. It will then use both Navcam and ChemCam for an AEGIS observation of the new location. Presuming that Curiosity ends the drive on more solid footing than today’s location, it will do contact science during the weekend plan, then drive on towards the next fascinating waypoint on our journey towards the western canyons of Mount Sharp.
Written by Deborah Padgett, OPGS Task Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory
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Last Updated Oct 25, 2024 Related Terms
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