Marlon Cox...

Marlon in the Shuttle Cockpit

Hi, I’m Marlon Cox, an Aerospace engineering major form Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. I grew up in Detroit, MI and attended The University Liggett School for high school before my family moved to the Ann Arbor, MI area where we currently live. I’m definitely a life long NASA nut. I’ve know I’ve wanted to work here since middle school. The funny thing is that getting here wasn’t as nearly as hard as I thought it would be.

Hiking in Big Bend National Park

How I got to work at NASA …

Basically all I did was go to a career fair and met the lovely Anne Romer of NASA Human Resources fame. I gave Anne my resume and that evening she called me up and scheduled an interview for the next day. After a pretty decent interview and about a month of waiting I got the job.

Were I’m working…

This is my first co-op tour (Spring 05) and on arrival in Huston I was assigned to DF73, Shuttle Electrical Systems in the Mission Operations Directorate, aka the EGIL group. The EGIL’s( Electrical Generation and Illumination Flight Controllers) are responsible for monitoring the fuel cells, cryogenic oxygen and hydrogen tanks, and electrical busses on the shuttle.

Broomball

What I’m working on…

I’ve been assigned quite a few tasks to complete during my time in DF73. Most of my activities consist of fulfilling the duties of any other new hire to the EGIL Group. I’m going through an abbreviated training flow, learning from certified EGIL on console in the Mission Control Center and helping update flight rules and handbooks. My big project this tour is to create an Orbiter Powerdown spreadsheet to assist EGILs on console with powerdown procedures.

What I do with my free time…

The biggest surprise about co-oping was the amount of fun stuff to do. I’ve been partying in New Orleans, Hiking in Texas’ Big Bend National Park, Scuba certified, and we’ve got a lot of other stuff planned for the rest of the tour. In addition to all the great adventures, I’ve made a lot of great friends and we have a great time just hanging out in Houston.

Long story short, working at JSC is awesome. If you have any questions about it just e-mail me mrc11@case.edu.