Jacob Sullivan...

Greetings from Johnson Space Center! If you're reading this, it's probably for one of the following three reasons:

A.) You know me and I told you to come see my little corner of cyberspace,
B.) You just randomly picked my name off the list while looking at the co-op bios, or
C.) You're doing what I did when I looked at a lot of these pages, going through the names in your major in alphabetical order (like a nerd) frantically trying to get an idea of what NASA co-ops do before you have an interview.

Background

I'll begin by giving you a little background about myself. I am currently a junior in Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State University (GO STATE!!! BEAT THE HAWKS!). I was raised in River Falls, Wisconsin, about 25 miles east of the Twin Cities. Choosing Iowa State was quite possibly one of the best decisions of my life, it's a wonderful campus with an excellent engineering program (if you're not in college yet, I'd really recommend checking it out). I am a sports fanatic, (I spent a lot of time "coaching" a.k.a. yelling at my TV whenever my Cyclones got any time on the air, especially when March Madness rolled around.) I'm also a huge supporter of all Wisconsin's pro teams (yes, that makes me a cheesehead, yes, I do own a cheesehead, and yes, I do in fact wear the cheesehead during Packer games, I'm #67,455 on the season ticket waiting list) and it was great to finally have an opportunity to see the Brewers when they came down to play the Astros in Minute Maid Park. In my spare time I read, play golf, hang out with my friends, lift weights, or spend time (when I'm at school) at AIAA meetings/events.

The Road to Houston, Texas and JSC

I've known that I wanted to work for NASA since elementary school. I decided to be an Aerospace Engineer in 6th grade, because I wanted to make spacecraft. From my first college visit my advisor hammered the idea of getting an internship/co-op into everyone's head, so I spent my freshmen year browsing the career fair, getting a feel for the companies out there, and getting told the standard line that I should "come back when you're a sophomore/junior." About a month before the Fall 2004 career fair a friend of mine found out that NASA would be there, and I knew instantly who I was targeting for an interview. I talked to the JSC representatives, submitted my resume, and left the career fair hoping to hear back from them. The next day (or was it two?), I hit the message button on my answering machine and found out that NASA wanted to interview me. The interview went well, despite me being the most nervous I'd ever been in my life, and on a Friday afternoon, just before leaving for home, I learned that my dreams had come true, I had been honored with an offer to be a JSC co-op.

What I Do At JSC

I spent my first (Spring '05) tour at Johnson Space Center in DM42, the Descent Analysis group. I was involved in three major projects. My first, primary project was a study concerning how high the target perigee height of a satellite could be after a deorbit burn before the satellite skips off the atmosphere (and consequently ruins any chance of predicting the debris footprints). I got a crash course in Orbital Dynamics my first two weeks and got an opportunity to apply the MATLAB programming concepts I had been learning in school. I also got to learn some UNIX scripting for a project modifying and verifying a new version of a script that builds the Ascent Events Summary Sheet (ASEV) for the Space Shuttle. Finally, I redesigned and updated a web page with information about the Shuttle Emergency Landing Sites (ELS) runways for the Flight Dynamics Officers (FDO's). It was awesome knowing that some of my work had a direct impact on the workings in the front room of Mission Control. I also got to meet a bunch of great people and have a blast along the way.

This (Summer '05) tour was in EG4, Guidance, Navigation, & Controls (GN&C) Design and Analysis Branch, where I got an opportunity to work with the astronauts running crew trials to begin training for when the Japanese H-IIA Transfer Vehicle (HTV) begins making runs to the International Space Station (ISS) in 2008. I got to learn some new programming languages and worked to get our simulation ready to bring the astronauts in to evaluate our monitoring overlays. The overlays provide a method for the astronauts to determine the status of the HTV by illustrating the acceptable positions for the HTV as it approaches the ISS and show where the HTV Flight-Releasable Grapple Fixture (FRGF) needs to be before the astronauts can grab the HTV with the robotic arm and berth it to the station.

Life Outside JSC (All Work and No Play Makes Jake A Dull Boy.)

If you've read a few of these profiles, you know that co-ops have quite the social life. Seeing as Houston is the nation's 4th largest city, there's plenty, and I mean plenty to do. There's sports games, many museums, monuments, amusement parks (Six Flags Astroworld was recently named one of the top 10 amusement parks in the country), and lots of places to sightsee. Thursday nights are $0.50 nights at Gulf Greyhound Park down the road, we have co-ed softball teams, co-op trips, ultimate Frisbee on the weekends, $0.35 wings at BW3's on Tuesdays (Blazin' Challenge Champion, baby, 4:16!), movie nights, and best of all, tours of the awesome stuff here at JSC and lectures by Gene Kranz, Chris Kraft, Bill Parsons, John Young, Sy Liebergot, and Wayne Hale, among others. If you have questions, comments, or concerns about co-oping, life down here, or about Iowa State, feel free to drop me a line at jasull@iastate.edu.