Jonathan Rogers...
Howdy! My name is Jonathan Rogers and I'm an Aerospace Engineering
major from League City, Texas, but more importantly, I'm the
proudest member of the Fightin' Texas Aggie Class of 2006!
WHOOP!
About Me:
Although I was born in Port Neches, Texas, I've lived in League
City for just about all of my life. League City is an ever-growing
suburb in south-east Houston that's just about 15 minutes away
from JSC. Living here gave me the chance to see and hear all about
NASA while growing up. I even worked as a tour guide for Space
Center Houston during summers in high school, taking hundreds of
people through JSC’s most amazing places every day. During
my senior year of high school, I joined the FIRST Robotics team
that our school district and JSC sponsored. Being a part of that
group really showed me that I wanted to be an engineer for NASA.
After graduating from high school, I went to Texas A&M. In
October of my sophomore year, lots of hard work paid off - I talked
to NASA recruiters and interviewed a few weeks later. After a lot
of waiting, wondering, and praying, I found out in January 2004
that JSC wanted me to offer me a co-op with them!
Being a Co-op at JSC:
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Me, observing operations at one of the flight control consoles
in the Mission Control Multi-Purpose Support Room |
During my first tour at JSC, I was in the Cargo Support Engineering
Group. That's really just a fancy term for the people who deal
with the payloads on the shuttle and station. It was a great place
to start. I worked on real-time operations, which allowed me to
learn much about both the ISS and Shuttle programs. I contributed
to products that will be used on upcoming missions like the Japanese
H-IIa Transfer Vehicle (HTV) and Japanese Experiment Module (JEM).
One of my other projects was to evaluate how NASA could use vacuum
compression technology on the International Space Station. I'm
not kidding when I say that I looked at using those things you
see on late-night infomercials – they were actually pretty
effective!
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Me,
operating Robonaut Unit B to check out the system after
making some updates. |
I’m now working in the Robotic Systems Technology Branch
and plan to stay for the rest of my JSC co-op tours. We build robots,
implementing state-of-the-art technology to support human spaceflight.
The most famous project we have is the Robonaut, which is designed
to work with astronauts doing spacewalks. I’ve been given
the freedom to take tasks from the first CAD stages all the way
through production and implementation on real robots.
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The
SCOUT vehicle (left) and the mockup I helped to create
(right)
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My latest projects have been related to getting our robots ready
for a series of desert field tests at Meteor Crater in Arizona.
I’ve been working to seal parts of Robonaut from exposure
from the dusty conditions. I also helped to create a mockup of
the SCOUT (a prototype next-generation rover) for use in testing
Robonaut autonomous software.
There's so much more to being a co-op than just working. You go
to work for 8 hours a day and have no homework, leaving all kinds
of free time! The co-ops often go rock climbing, see movies, learn
to SCUBA dive, and even throw a beach party every term. I’ve
also played on co-op softball and volleyball teams.
Another perk of being a co-op are the tours and lectures. We heard
Gene Kranz, Dr. Chris Kraft, astronauts, and flight directors,
to name a few. Some of the places we got to tour were the food
research lab (think freeze-dried ice cream), the huge astronaut
training pool, NASA's aircraft at Ellington Field, and the shuttle
simulators. Most of my full-time co-workers hadn't even been to
these places!
JSC is a great place to work. Everyone is glad to be here and doing
his or her part to keep the Space Shuttle flying and to finish
the ISS. If you're trying to land a co-op, it's definitely worth
all the effort and enthusiasm you've got. There's no secret plan
to tell you how to get here, but hard work, good grades, and involvement
in extracurricular activities would be on the list if one existed.
Sure, if you co-op, you'll graduate a little behind schedule -
but seriously, what engineer graduates in four years anyway?
I hope that's some help for all the aspiring co-ops out there.
I'm always happy to answer questions, so don't hesitate to e-mail!
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