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 I
grew up in the middle of the Space Age, quite literally,
living in Las Cruces, NM, home of White Sands Missile
Range. My father worked at WSMR as an electrician, and
he took me to work with him several times and showed
me around the WSMR facilities. When I enrolled at New
Mexico State University, I earned my college expenses
by working for Physical Sciences Laboratory, a branch
of the college that had contracts to support various
missile programs. While there, I helped analyze data
for the Nike Zeus anti-missile missile, including America's
first attempt to intercept an orbiting satellite in
1969.
I
followed avidly followed all the space-related news,
including the Apollo Program. Parts of Apollo were tested
at WSMR and an adjacent facility constructed by NASA
just for Apollo testing. When my career led me into
the design of professional audio tape recorders, our
3M manufacturing plant in Camarillo, CA also made instrumentation
tape recorders used by NASA and all the missile test
ranges (and the spy agencies, too.)
I
have never lost touch with my Space Age roots, and even
today I spend time at our local library reading Aviation
Week and Space Technology, and I recently began receiving
a weekly tabloid on space activities. I love air shows,
aviation museums and any kind of technical exhibit.
I still remember visiting a JPL Open House and seeing
Galileo waiting for a launch vehicle.
I
spent 15 years designing professional audio tape recorders
and another 15 years building robotics systems. My systems
never cruised around the surface of Mars, but they did
provide automation assistance to recording engineers
in recording studios. Somewhere between these two career
segments I became an EE Professor at Cal State University
at Northridge. I loved teaching and motivating students,
especially when helping them to see the big picture
of how their studies could change their lives and the
lives of everyone around them.
To
me, the exploration of space has two exciting benefits.
First is the technology that is developed that trickles
down to assist the everyday man. Trips by far away spacecraft
impact us either through spin-off products or in the
evolving systems that allow us to monitor our Sun and
our own planet to predict and understand changes that
can have catastrophic effects on mankind. I'm not talking
about just grand events such as global warming or asteroid
collision, but rather daily global weather and solar
weather monitoring.
The
other benefit of space is our improved understanding
of the Cosmos. During my lifetime we have made tremendous
strides in understanding the entire continuum of matter,
reaching from high-energy particle physics to giant
Black Holes. This is a fascinating puzzle that demands
our attention as we struggle to grasp the true significance
of Life.
I
would like to use the Solar System Ambassadors program
to teach others how we benefit now from the seemingly
abstract activities millions of miles or millions of
light years away. I want to bring those far away missions
into their laps and show them how they are participants
in everything at NASA. Most of all, if I should be so
lucky, I would like to generate the spark that leads
a youngster to follow a career in Science, continuing
the search for the answers to our future.
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