He introduced me to Barry and I gave him a hug. Barry used to be my grandmother's flying partner. He asked me if I wanted to see the airplane, and he took me up for about a half hour. He even gave me my first flying lesson, no charge.

The first time I flew in that plane I was 4 years old. We went up from Redlands to Big Bear. I remember it clearly. I was seat-belted to my dad's lap. My mom and 2 little brothers were in the back. The sun was shining brightly and the snow on the ground was a few days old. A real delight. We ate breakfast at a cute little place up there. I don't remember anything else about the day except that when it was time to go back, we had to drive home. I was so sad, and I never knew why we couldn't fly home.

One day in our Aerodynamics course, at UCIrvine, Dr. Liebeck told us about the runway at Big Bear. It's short, and on a hot afternoon, density at that altitude is much less than at sea level. Stall speed is higher, so on a short runway with more than four people in a 4-seater... the memories came back and what a great feeling to know that my grandmother had planned the whole trip. Her car was in Big Bear so we could drive home. Later, she had my mom drive back up with her so she could fly her plane back to Redlands and my mom could take the car. All of these memories are so clear. I just wish I could remember that restaurant more clearly.

I am now an acoustics engineer at Boeing Phantom Works, the advanced research and development unit for Boeing. I still want to fly and to become an astronaut. I think it will take another ten years to achieve all of my goals, but I know that a job like this can take me anywhere I want to go.

Then on to science fairs, and supportive chemistry and physics teachers. My mother helped me get a scholarship to Iowa State in Aerospace engineering, supporting me in my quest for space exploration, even though her religion taught that such was damnable folly. Perhaps she knew my poor eyesight and a rapidly shrinking aerospace market would keep me planted firmly on Earth when I graduated with a BS in 1970.

The security of a steady job and my love of intellectual property law has kept me from space exploration from then until now. With the possibility of finding a home for new manufacturing technologies in ISRU, I have joined Amalgam Industries, which my friend Bob Wigger formed to attract capital, talent and seed technologies that work together to create new markets and industries. Amalgam expects to grow rapidly from a startup to a major player in the military, space, consumer, and infrastructure markets with an exciting and profitable amalgamation of these resources. Stay tuned!

My mother told of me climbing into my dad’s lap as a toddler, and making an ‘airplane’ by slipping his comb under the pocket clip of his pen. (I have no recollection of that.) I do remember deciding at age eight that I wanted to be a ‘space man’ some time after Sputnik, long before the Mercury astronauts were named, when human space flight was still a dream.

The passion for all things that fly resulted in a rewarding career as an aerospace engineer with NASA, and enjoying my favorite hobby as a private pilot.

As a nuts & bolts person, I rebuilt the coaster brake on my bike at around six years old. Rebuilt my minibike motor when I was ten, the story continues through motorcycles then cars. By the time I was 14 I knew engineers designed cars, so there was never any question at all in my mind...it would be an Engineering degree from GA Tech and I would design cars! Then we learned about out of state tuition & decided Auburn University would have to suffice - I figured the car companies did not much care which school you attended.

Then, in 1979, I got good offers for several opportunities from both Ford & GM. But what's the deal with these aerospace companies? They are offering around 20% more money, they are not in Detroit, in fact, you could pretty much pick your location anywhere in the US.

Well, it turned out that the aerospace jobs had all the mechanical gee whiz nuts & bolts stuff, if not more so than the auto industry. In addition, I seemed to fit in with the aerospace people I spoke with during the interview process better than with the auto crowd. I started as a design Engineer at Arnold Engineering Development Center in 1979. Through the years, I have held jobs with other aerospace companies and enjoyed the opportunity to work in the SSME improvement program and on wind tunnel testing programs in most major US facilities as well as some international programs. I am currently back at AEDC working on varying Mach no. hypersonic ground testing capability.

I first knew I wanted to work in aerospace when I saw dollar signs! I expect you are thinking something related to the world’s oldest profession...Guilty as charged!

LA

I have vague memories of watching a Gemini launch on TV (I was 5). I have idyllic memories of Santa Claus, Apollo 8 and the reading of Genesis on Christmas 1998. I remember staying up late to see Neil and Buzz. I remember seeing Saturn for the first time early one morning in my 2 inch Tasco telescope - 4 am up by myself as a kid in the backyard. I remember summer camping with that little telescope, seeing a total solar eclipse in 1972 and listening to Carly Simon sing about it.

[Note: the toroidal space station image is not mine - it is someone else's and only represents memories for me - from many kid's books.]

I was completely blown away. I ran to the library and read every book on the space program, even ones I could not understand and ones published before there was anything man-made on the Moon. I built model rockets and model planes. I took greater appreciation of the ability to watch space shuttle launches from my front porch in Central Florida. I grabbed everyone within earshot to tell about the greatest adventure of mankind.

My wonder and exhilaration for space exploration has not diminished, but has grown and prospered through the years. I am now a graduate student working on liquid propulsion, working towards the goal of placing my own footprints on the surface of the Moon and turning upwards to see the absolute beauty of our planet Earth.

In September 1961 I entered the second grade. I took the rocket to school and launched it three times. And all three times ended me in the Principal's office.

The first time the rocket landed in the street, off the school grounds. Rocket launch was fine. For a second grader leaving the schools grounds, no. The second time the rocket landed on the roof. Launching the rocket was fine. Retrieving the rocket from the roof of a two story building was not. The third time was show-n-tell INSIDE a class. The rocket launch went as planned, a horizontal shot at the blackout curtain. The rocket hooked a fin into the curtain, splitting it all the way to the ceiling and dropped safely to the floor. The class went wild.

When the teacher thanked me for being our resident rocket scientist, I knew.

My father was a private pilot; my mother took her flight training while pregnant with me. So it is quite possible that my first moment of human consciousness came in a Taylorcraft a few thousand feet over Long Island.

Oh, sure, there have been many other inspirations along the way. But I cannot recall a conscious moment when the sky did not call.

I read through his log books after his death and pieced together some history. He survived 892 hours in command of Martin B26 Marauders. Most of it on the “Widow Maker” A model. There was also 20 Hours in the B-17 Flying Fortress. 50 hours in Beaufighters, 13 in Hurricanes, 12 in Mitchells.

Post war, there is one of his log books, showing only one type. 6600 hours as Pilot in Command on C-47’s. I found an entry for 4 hours on the day I was born. Writing a C-47 endorsement for some lucky F/O.

After that, while I was growing up, there was a further 12,100 hours. Most of it on the front line airline aircraft. DC4, DC 6, Viscounts, L188 and B727. Buried in there was 1000 hours on a mixed bag including B707, B747, L-1011, F28.. And stick time on the Goodyear Blimp, Convair 440, DC-8, Wirraway, Brittania, DC-7. Even time on the Lunar Excursion Module Sim while on a fact finding trip as part of the Simulator selection program for his airline. So there was plenty of “hanger flying” while I was growing up. Plenty of models, both Control Line and Radio Control. Lot’s of books and photos. Dad was a flying nut and I inherited it.

But THE day (well, actually a night) was when I was only 6. I still remember it like it was yesterday. Dad took me along on a training flight in a DC-4. 20 minutes ferry to a country airfield, then a couple of hours with the airport firemen while Dad flew night circuits and bumps, writing yet another endorsement. Then 20 minutes back to home base. Somewhere in that I was given 5 minutes in the right seat. And allowed to hold the control yoke. Couldn’t see over the instrument panel. Feet wouldn’t touch the floor. But oh, the magic. A magnificently complex instrument panel. The wonderful smell of hydraulic fluid. The glorious grumble of the big radials. When I stood up on the seat, the spectacle of the city lights ahead. I was in heaven.

From that evening, there was never a doubt. I would have a life in aviation. I planned on flying but that didn’t work. Found at age 18 that I had a red-green colour perception problem. So my direction shifted to engineering. I’ve had the privilege of a career as Tech Rep for 2 major US Avionics manufacturer. And now at age 57, a wonderful opportunity to enter a Research Program leading to a PhD in Aero Eng. Definitely the wrong end of the career, but hey, Aviation is a continuous learning process, so why not?

After that, who knows. I hope to build an aircraft when I “retire” and fly it round Australia. And stay involved in this wonderful industry, whatever it morphs to in the next few years.

Darkness. Warmth. A kick. A push. A squeeze. Light! A slap. A cry. A breath. A sound. A touch. A smell. A taste. A sight. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Days. Months. Years. ...

A house. A room. A brown wooden box with a curved glass front. Color moving pictures. Sound. A station: a black "eye" with three letters in the pupil. Outer space. Stars. Spaceships.

How I watched it, absorbed it. There on that 21-inch television screen just for me. Outer space. Stars. Spaceships. The program's name: "Lost in Space"; my favorite character: the "Jupiter II." How a simple wire-suspended plastic model, resembling two cupped soup bowls, could have effected me so much remains a mystery to me to this day. Its graceful flight, its spinning engine beacon, its "whooo"-ing sound, seized my mind with the immediacy and fury no teacher, no parent, no clergyman, could ever match. There on that 21-inch television screen was my future, my destiny. That program had begun my quest for space.

Though space was always on my mind at the time, I still had room to add some other fillers into my cortex, none the least of which was education. I have always had a strong impulse to learn, as demonstrated by my "excellent" grades in school. Early elementary years were boring, however; I wanted to learn about space, but the teachers kept shoving math, reading, and handwriting in front of my face. As a result I turned to my inherent artistic ability and to my own almost furious creativity and began to draw -- not just pictures, but entire cartoons! I think I started Day 1 with a "Lost in Space" cartoon.

The Apollo moon and Viking Mars missions brought some reality into my quest. Throughout my remaining elementary and high school years, I became more aware of, more interested in, and more obsessed with my quest for space. My best friend and I had planned to go to college together, join the Air Force ROTC program, and, after serving in the Air Force, branch into NASA. (It wasn't until college that I learned that the USAF and NASA are only connected through contracts.) We even sent away to NASA for job information. When it arrived, however, I almost had a seizure when I saw the official words that people without near-perfect vision cannot become astronauts (I've worn glasses since the fourth grade). For weeks I was crushed, I couldn't believe my quest could end just because of poor eyesight. I couldn't let that stop my quest; I wouldn't let that stop my quest. I didn't.

Deciding that as an aerospace engineer I may become one of the Montgomery Scotts (Star Trek) who actually get to ride along in their own spacecraft (even if they do wear glasses), I applied and was accepted to Boston University. The university's financial assistance package was an offer I couldn't refuse; and together with other loans and grants, I packed my belongings, kissed my mother good-bye, and moved into the world of morning lectures, afternoon work study, and evening studies....

[End of Part I]

On the last day of our vacation, our family holed up in a hotel room a considerable distance from Orlando. My sister and I were bounding off the beds and walls at 7 AM as children are wont to do... when my Dad turned the channel from cartoons to footage of a Shuttle launch. We stopped and marveled at the huge plume below the craft. In a moment of clarity, I realized that we were in Florida and might - just might - be able to see the launch from the window. I drew back the shades and saw a towering vertical cloud off in the distance. My eyes grew wide... and I knew.

Today, I work for a small company making payloads and infrastructure for spacecraft. I love my job and couldn't imagine working in another industry. In a few months, however, I can only hope to join the ranks of NASA as an Astronaut Candidate.

However, growing up in Europe was a real handicap in that days for a young boy who wanted to become an astronaut. Everybody whom I asked told me that one had to be American or Russian citizen to become an astronaut. But I did not give up, lent every book about the moon, the stars and rocket science from the public library, and at the age of ten I found out that I did not just wanted to travel in a starship. Much more I wanted to understand how to build one. Thus, I decided that engineer would be the suitable profession for me. Later on I could still become an astronaut. To be honest, Montgomery Scott was always much more a hero to me than James T. Kirk.

Most of my teachers did never believe that I would ever make it. But since I had an aim, I knew how to reach it. I achieved a degree in aerospace engineering and after a 16 year intermezzo in the power plant business I was able to get a position in the largest Swiss space company, where I am still employed today. Now everybody tells me that I am too old to become an astronaut. But I still have my membership card to the public library - and I never give up my dreams.

And that was it. Soon after, I got my first kit of Legos and started building my own models of crude spaceships.

Obsessed with space and flying into my early teens, I had a very vivid dream of a personal flying craft powered by a small jet engine. I did lots of research on jet engines, and my grandfather, in complete coincidence, had sent me a book by Pratt & Whitney on how jet engines work. So I built one of my own, which almost worked except for a few minor challenges that were financially difficult to solve on a $10 weekly allowance. Nonetheless, I was about 12 when I knew that wanted to be an aerospace engineer.

In my mid-teens, I got into flying radio-controlled (RC) model airplanes and began building an ultralight aircraft of my own design even though I had never piloted an aircraft. It was about that time I had the opportunity to fly and pilot an ultralight over the deserts east of San Diego. I started taking ultralight flying lessons and eventually soloed. Then it was off to college to study aerospace engineering.

During my college years I designed and flew several RC aircraft. I focused my interest in propulsion systems and advanced space travel, with the ultimate goal of making the technology behind the scene in the movie I saw when I was 6 become real.

Since then, my professional career has involved jet engine design, advanced air-breathing propulsion concepts, and rocket engine performance for space launch systems. I'm extremely lucky that I have seen over three dozen space launches from a "mission-control" perspective, watching my engine work as it flies from the bonds of earth.

I'm very fortunate in that I feel I could write a "When Did You Know?" story for each day that I've ever come to work.

I had my first flight in a Cessna 172 at the age of three, which I still vividly remember to this day.

I have been fascinated with airplanes as far back as I can remember, but I made the decision to become an aeronautical engineer when I was nine years old.

To this day I am just as awestruck with flight as I was when I was a child.

I pursue an engineering degree and AFROTC commission at Cornell; in the class ahead of me is Mark Dickerson, whose “When Did You Know” posting also recalls seeing Super Constellations while growing up. On December 30, 1972, I wake about 2:30 AM with two blindingly clear bits of knowledge in my head: (1) there’s been an airplane crash, and (2) I’m going to work in aviation safety. Stories and images of the Eastern 401 accident in the Everglades fill that day’s news, so I’m eerily right about #1.

Fast-forward nine years: I’m in Boeing Flight Test Operations, assigned to the #4 767-200, N603UA. Now eight more: I’m Boeing safety-of-flight (SOF) certification lead for the YF-22; as a Reservist I’ve done aero-structural certification flight test planning for two modification programs (EC-18B ARIA and a Test Wing C-130), and Systems Engineering management for the AC-130U Gunship. The early 1990s find me in 777 Customer Engineering, then returning to SOF and test program planning for the F-22, Japanese 767 AWACS (I work with Art Meadows, who’s also posted his recollections here), and X-32; Reserve projects include help with an F-16 TEMP update, and C-17 First Flight Readiness Review and Site Activation planning. In mid-1999 I leave Boeing for four years of near-full-time active duty, starting as a test site manager, moving to the Pentagon as a Contracting IT project manager, then the Engineering and Technical Management policy office where I still work as a contractor. I think I’ve come suitably close to being right about #2.

My son makes his first flight (a Delta 757, Seattle-LAX) at three months of age. We take a ten-minute hop in a Waco open-cockpit biplane when he’s seven, another in the EAA Ford Tri-Motor at 15. He’s 12 when we visit the Smithsonian’s new Air and Space Museum facility at Dulles Airport, soon after its December 2003 debut. Overall it’s impressive; the commercial aviation and air transportation exhibits are somewhat disappointing, but improvements are evident by our March 2008 return. And then I see the United 767: a Boeing Flight Test photo of #4, taken over the snow-covered Cascade Mountains in January 1982. “How the heck do you know that?” I point out the structural adapter at the vertical fin tip, the trailing cone static pressure tubing, and “N603UA” on the aft fuselage; I’d been in the first observer’s seat as Test Director that day. Ben never even hesitates: “Congratulations. You’re so old, your picture’s in a museum!”

Or does it? Four decades later, I count as unmerited blessings the many opportunities I have been given to contribute to the research, development and application of aerospace sciences to hypersonics, wind tunnels, parachutes, rocket motors and fire. And beyond the technical and programmatic blessings are the life-long friendships with the people of the aerospace community. AIAA makes available many ways for me to stay in touch with these dear people.

A Fellows Dinner several years ago put an exclamation point on the "people blessings" aspect of my career in aerospace. As we sat down to dinner, I introduced myself to the distinguished gentleman on my left. He told me his name was Scott Crossfield.

During my career, through research and direct support, I was able to contribute to the Apollo Program, the Viking Program, the Space Shuttle, the Space Station, and other national space programs. In addition, I was a manager of research on aircraft engines. Some very exciting work was activity related to the resolution of various flight anomalies.

My career with NASA was successful and I retired as a division chief, then I worked on national programs as an employee of MRJ, Inc. I was active in the AIAA. I served on technical committees, chairman of a technical committee, then I served as a director technical. I was honored with the coveted grade of Fellow. I cannot imagine a more exciting, satisfying career than mine in the aerospace profession.

The Summer of 1972 is when I knew for sure. I was seven years old, and our family took a trip out east to visit several places that would inspire me to no end. We visited the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL, where I saw the huge Saturn V on its side and walked on a simulated lunar surface. We saw the Blue Angels, then flying the F-4 (built in my hometown of St. Louis) at their NAS Pensacola home. Then we went to Kennedy Space Center, where we saw the Apollo 17 Saturn V being stacked in the Vechicle Assembly Building. When Apollo 17 launched that December, I remember thinking how cool it was that I saw that very rocket with my own eyes coming together in that huge, huge buidling!

If all that were not enough, we stopped by the USAF Museum in Dayton, OH on the way home. There I saw for the first time the XB-70 and a film about its history. I was completely enthralled by this fast jet.

I came home from this trip so excited by airplanes and the Saturn V that I was oozing desire for a future somewhere in the aerospace world. Thankfully, after many years of study that culminated in BS and MS engineering degrees, I found myself celebrating 20 years of sevice with The Boeing Company in 2007.

The Summer of '72. That's when I knew.

Later, in January 1986, I was at school and saw live on TV the Challenger accident. Although tragic and shocking, this event was deeply inspiring and moving.

Finally, in July 1989, I was totally amazed by the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the Moon landing at the National Air and Space Museum and from then on, I definitely knew that I wanted spaceflight to be part of my life.

I remember walking up and down the isles of that airplane, craning my neck at the small portals on the emergency doors trying to see the engines and wings. Those big, swaying turbofans pushing me across the Atlantic fascinated me. The wings that lifted us up, and the smooth way in which the plane tilted back to leave the runway, and splayed it's flaps to make a soft landing had me hooked. I remember the passengers clapping when the pilot made a smooth landing. That doesn't happen anymore, but the appreciation for the combination of piloting skill and engineering that made it happen was addictive.

I was a plane nut then, and evolved into a space nut (though the bug had been planted by the landings 2 years before.) But I still target myself toward human space-flight, because without the human element, spacecraft are just another form of robots. But when a human is along for the adventure, it becomes meaningful in a way that all humans intrinsically know, though don't always acknowledge or understand.

I always fascinated and feel great when I hear the jet engine roar approaches or faded away. My dad uses to take me to watch these planes landings/take-off. At the age of 13, I go by myself on Wednesdays & Thursdays of every week to watch KLM, BA landings, all that took most of my attention and thinking then, is what is all contained in that suspended cylindrical type called engine?.. Jet engines subsequently breathed my interest, propelled my ideas and ignite my talents to produce a thrust that lifts me up into aerospace design engineering ambition or dream.

At 23, I designed, constructed a home-made turbo-fan engine for my personal experiments.

Its still my dream one day I will work with these great technological-toys!.

I always wish if I can get the opportunity to study even if it is a 1-year HNC or HND study so that I gain a formal qualification in Aeronautics/Aerospace engineering.

Abdullahi Bello, (AIAA member no: 276851, “ABK Turbo-Fan engine owner”) Future Jet-Engine Design Engineer.

I don't know what made me a math/science geek; neither of my parents went beyond high school (my Dad, a Navy Chief, didn't actually finish high school). But somehow, my family believed in me. They kept me supplied with Lincoln Logs and Erector Sets and chemistry sets; my uncle, a lumberjack, gave me a little paperback book called a "Ready Reckoner," that was backwoods Maine's answer to the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. And from things like that, I found that math and science were tools that (1) helped me tell science from fiction and (2) helped me figure out how fiction could be turned into science.

The tipping point may have been my high school calculus and physics teachers, B. G. Holman and Mary Emerson ("Emmy-Poo," but NOT to her face!). By the time they got through with me, I was hopelessly in love with math and physics, and that hasn't changed in 43 years!

So Heinlein showed me what could happen, my family thought that I could make it happen, and B. G. and Emmy-Poo started to show me how to make it happen. God bless 'em all!

From that day, I wanted to be working in the space industry and I considered myself an English man pursuing the American dream. I wanted life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It wasn't until later that I discovered the dream of spaceflight is international. My whole world changed and I can say for certain that my career from then afterwards has been a direct result of that exhibit. I am obsessed with everything to do with space and long to make my own contribution.

Thank you President Kennedy, for effecting the lifes of not just Americans but those of us across the pond too. Your vision was courages and inspiring. Ad Astra.

WOW! I thought it must be great to be an astronaut, but I knew that was an impossibility for me. I then thought how exciting it must be to just be a pilot. So the next week, I signed up for flying lessons. And that began my sincere interest in aviation and its history. Little did I know on that Sunday evening that 30 years later I would be working as a Historian at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville,Alabama.

How our paths of life follow unplanned roads is amazing. Neil Armstrong and Apollo 11 made a flight to the Moon, but they influenced me to pursue a unique career in aviation history.

When applying for college at the turn of the millennium, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. My family encouraged me to pursue an engineering degree because I had "always been good at math and science" and because "it's a field where you can make a living": all reasonable albeit not remarkable reasons. And so I did, thinking "I can always change if I don't like it..." I, not being one to simply apply to college as Open Option, decided I would start at the top of the list, and work my way down if I didn't like a particular major. So without so much as a second thought, I filled in the top bubble on my application form which read "Aerospace Engineering Sciences (AES)", thinking to myself that this sounded like an interesting field but what does "aerospace" actually mean? I knew what space was (and that it was the realm of astronauts and science fiction), but what was this "aero" part? I was soon to discover what it meant, and I was taken aback by the challenge and beauty of it all. At the very least, I loved the reaction I got when I said "I'm an aerospace engineer". (It was usually "wow!", which is probably the coolest response possible)

Skip forward to January of 2008: I'm standing on a stage in Reno, NV accepting an award for winning the Graduate Division of the AIAA International Student Paper Conference. This is not the first time I've accepted an award for a conference paper (the 6th, actually) but somehow this moment is very special because it's AIAA (at the international level nonetheless), and AIAA means something special to me. For a moment even I feel a bit nervous! As I make my way back to my seat, I reflect upon the past 6.5 years and how I got to the place I'm at now. 4 years of undergraduate studies in AES at CU Boulder, and in the middle of my 3rd year of graduate school in the same department. I've been working at Ball Aerospace as a Spacecraft Systems Engineer for over 3 years now, periodically teach a prep class in AES for freshmen, and have held an officer's position with the AIAA Student Branch since i was a junior in my undergrad. All in all, quite a journey I've made: I've never done something for so long!

But the question still remains, how did I get here? I guess it's partially a bit of luck, a lot of work, and the support of those around me that kept me on-track. I think though, that there must be something said about the allure of this field and the amazing things we do in it. Aerospace is challenging and exciting enough to capture the imagination of both children and adults alike. I like to think that I could have done anything in my life that I set my mind to doing, but aerospace is what I get excited about, and aerospace is what I want to get others excited about. Aerospace is what I have chosen for myself and I've never looked back.

In 1946, my fellow engineering students and I gathered in front of the men's dormitory at New Mexico A & M to look across the Organ Mountains at the white, twisting vapor trails of the initial launches of captured German V-2 rockets from the White Sands Proving Ground, and I was hooked on the field of rocketry. I started working as a part-time student employee in the college's Physical Science Laboratory in the spring of 1947 to reduce telemetry data from those V-2 launches at a wage of 65 cents an hour, which was top student pay on the campus in those days.

Then, in the spring of 1952, I attended an inspiring lecture on "The Mars Project" by Dr. Wernher von Braun at the Branigan Memorial Library in Las Cruces, NM. I was so entranced that I joined the New Mexico-West Texas Section of the American Rocket Society that evening and have been a member of the ARS and its successor, the AIAA, ever since.

Those three experiences were the main incidents that started and kept on track my 61-year career in the aerospace field, thus far, and it's not over yet.

Since then I've worked as an air traffic controller, a Space Shuttle mission controller, directed operations of multi-million dollar science facilities for the European Space Agency, and supervised the operations of a billion US dollars worth of commercial satellites. Now my big interest is understanding how people work together in complex systems, how they communicate, and how they make decisions. And that's probably because when I was 6, I stood in that control tower cab, wanting desperately to understand what they were saying so I could join in the fun.

Vassilios "Bill" Haloulakos Retired Associate Fellow, Student Chapter Founder and Faculty Adviser,National Distinguished Lecturer

As a child I was awed by those "iron birds" as the Nazi Stukas bombed our town in Southern Greece. Later, in high school, I read the story of "some one named" Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier in a place called Muroc Lake California. Oh, how romantic each and every one of those words were to me then! Upon graduation, I entered the Greek Air Force Academy and was sent to Randolph Air Force Base, Texas for training in the venerable AT-6 Texas trainers. Having seen the "Bigger AF Picture" I resolved to somehow do "something different". After a brief visit to the University of Texas at Austin I realized that if I could return and study Aeronautical Engineering I could then do this "something different". Upon my return to Greece I left the Greek Air Force and returned to the US where I did study Aeronautical Engineering, first two years at St. Mary's University, San Antonio, Texas then completed it at the University of Southern California. Working at Rocketdyne and attending grad school I recall we had a classmate named Neil. It was on July 20,1969 that I really learned who that Neil was! Several years later I did get to also meet that "some one named" Chuck Yeager!

During my working years, traveling as part of regular work to "That Muroc Lake", renamed Edwards Air Force Base, I felt especially moved. As I shared this feeling with one of my associates (a native of Iowa) he said to me: "Well, Haloulakos, now you know how I felt when I first saw the Parthenon"!

Indeed it has been a "joyride" and I consider myself fortunate to have worked in numerous projects, from Apollo, to Skylab, through the Ballistic Missile Defense and the Strategic Defense Initiative Programs.

As a Professor at West Coast University, I founded and advised an AIAA student chapter for 18 years and during the 90s I served as an AIAA National Distinguished Lecturer thus, sharing knowledge and excitement with others in the field.

So aviation was a big part of my life. And I naturally decided, before my 18, to work for aircraft building...at ONERA, the French Aerospace Lab, that could alow to "touch" a various type of design. Achieving my high degree in mechanical engineering at 24, I entered...ONERA!! in the Aeroelasticity and Structural Dynamics Dpt where I am still working so far :)

In August 1977 the prototype shuttle Enterprise began glide tests where it separated from a Boeing 747 and gradually descended back to Earth. I was entering high school and began writing term papers on topics that included future Space Shuttle operations and space colonies. I began reading books by Isaac Asimov (I, Robot; David Starr, Space Ranger; Earth Is Room Enough; Nine Tomorrows; The Bicentennial Man), Stewart Brand (Space Colonies) and Gerard K. O’Neil (The High Frontier).

The concept of humans traveling regularly to, and living in space was fascinating. I knew then that aerospace science and engineering were to be my future.

A bigger "wow" moment happened in December, 1968, when the Apollo 8 mission launched on the most beautiful, big rocket I had ever seen. I can recall Christmas Eve that year as if it were yesterday. I came out of church services with my parents and we discovered that our car had a flat tire. While my Dad worked to fix the tire, I sat in the car staring at a beautiful moon and starry sky while listening to the crew as they orbited that same moon and read from Genesis. Then came the biggest "wow" moment: I bugged my parents incessantly to take me to Florida to see a launch, so we headed off in our car from Colorado to Florida in July, 1971, with the intent to see the launch of Apollo 15.

We kicked around for a few days at beach resorts, then headed for Titusville before dawn on July 25. We found a place to park our car on the Banana river (that car became our uncomfortable hotel that night) and counted down the hours until the launch the next morning. July 26 dawned clear and hot and Apollo 15 slowly rumbled off the pad right on time. I could not believe the sound when it reached us across the river! I snapped pictures with my little Instamatic and trembled with emotion, tears running down my cheeks. Well, that sealed it - I had to work in the space program, so off I went two years later to college to major in engineering. I've had many more "wow" moments in my career (like being on the Titan launch team for the Cassini mission) and still view our exploits in space with childlike wonder and delight. I work hard now to pass that feeling on to future generations.

When I was eight, I played building my own spaceships and small prototypes, which reach only a couple of meters. But I think this is the kind of spirit you need to keep through all you life. And never forget the goals you want to reach.

The truth is that every time I look at the night sky or the Moon, the same feelings come into play.

I begun my professional career in technology, but never forgetting what my aim was, and the first real step into space was done latter in 2005, when I created NanoEspacio, with the clear intention to find ways to make it possible.

I initially wanted to be a pilot and as time progressed I got more interested in the design of the aircraft itself.

I had a period of extreme fascination with aerodynamics and fluid mechanics to the extent that I was perusing undergraduate texts while in junior high.

Interestingly, I've ended up pretty close to where I started. I'm now studying aerospace systems engineering which must have something to do with the cockpit that dazzled me!

Her story is: "In the late 1940's, we were on the farm in Dakota, far from any cities or airports. One day I looked out the kitchen window and saw my two-year old son staring at the sky. I walked to the sun porch and realized that he was watching an airplane flying over at very high altitude. The airplane flew on from both sight and sound, but Mark watched that "hole in the sky" where the airplane had disappeared for over 30 minutes, never moving. It was no surprise to me later when aviation became the focus of his life."

There were model planes and spaceships (one of my favorites was the moon buggy from 2001: A Space Odyssey) along with some Estes model rockets that reinforced my interest.

I didn't realize at the time that my first model rockets were based on JPL's first Army rockets until I arrived at JPL in the summer of 1975 after my sophomore year of college and saw the mock-ups of the Corporal and Sergeant missiles right outside the building where I worked. Clearly I had found my way to where I needed to be. Despite straying from aerospace for a short period (doing engineering design and simulation programming for Fluor Corp.) I couldn't resist the calling and have stopped trying to. I've been at JPL for 23 years and expect to retire from here. I now try to inspire the next generation of aerospace engineers - the photo is me with a group of students who I sponsored for a summer project a couple years ago.

After a few years of college, I began to see how my love of math and physics could contribute to the Space Program, and in fact, worked in one of von Braun's labs at Huntsville during summers while in graduate school. My career began at Boeing working on NASA materials science in microgravity contracts. Although I moved to DoD when those contracts ended, I have continued to work areas that involve space science and systems to the present. While I have had many other mentors who have helped and inspired me during college and afterward, I remember that lecture by Dr. von Braun as the point where I embarked on my aerospace career.

Fortunately, I was gifted with skills in both Math and Science and particularly liked Physics. I was also captivated by Manned Spaceflight. This may be a bit rare, as I don’t remember Sputnik, or Mercury, or Gemini. I do remember (some) Moon Landing operations and watching history on my Grandparents small B&W – it must have been a Sunday that we were visiting. My career formative years were during the “first Gap’ in U.S. Spaceflight so that wasn’t it. Yet when time came to select a university, I rejected the University of Illinois and entered Parks College of S. Louis University convinced that if I completed my degree, I would be working Manned Spaceflight.

So, When Did I know? It seems I have known perhaps since grade school that Space Flight was part of my plan. Certainly that was the plan in late High School. Then a re-direction to military aircraft and a lot of commercial flight test support at Irvin. I have no regrets; I have made friends all along the way and have enjoyed the journey. Eventually this young lad, only one generation from the farms of Illinois made it to Manned Spaceflight and is actively working the Parachute and Airbag programs for Orion. To date, the parachute program has completed 14 major development tests and the airbag program a similar number (between 2 teams). Both have many additional tests in the coming months.

So, in summary, looking back, my career has taken a long and sweeping curve stopping at a number of points, all of those exciting and challenging. Being only about half way done, I cannot project the balance of what those curves will be, but I am sure that they will be exciting. It seems that proficiency in Science and Math has given me a great career, provided our family with a comfortable standard of living (even in Orange County) and secured a relatively stable future. I wish we could communicate this to today’s youth!

My dad was as expert machinist who cut critical detail parts for the Mercury and Gemini space capsules designed and manufactured at McDonnell Aircraft in St. Louis, MO. He also worked on all of the military aircraft products that came out of the St. Louis plant.

I was fascinated by the space launches and improved my newly developed reading skills (grade 2) on the local newspaper articles about the personal stories of the astronauts. They were my heros. I remember the excitement and the sorrows of this significant era.

The "aha" moment for me was at 7 years of age when our family attended the McDonnell Aircraft Company 25th anniversary open house in 1964. The overwhelming sights, sounds and smells of the manufacturing and assembly process were intoxicating. At a very deep level in a moment standing in building 33 of the engineering campus, I knew I was going to work there when I grew up.

In March 2008, I celebrate 29 years as a structural engineer at the same St. Louis facility. It was inevitable for me, since I was born at Scott AFB on the 4th of July - and I really have an uncle Sam!

So the rest, as they say, is history: putting in the work in the public schools of Los Angeles to qualify for college, the eight years at the University of Southern California earning, respectively, BS and MS degrees in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, the ultimate landing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and the subsequent nearly 35-year career there.

The picture shows me on the left at my 30th anniversary at JPL in April 2005 with the current JPL Director Dr. Charles Elachi.

Manned spaceflight captivated my imagination and I started my career on the Space Shuttle program, but then moved into satellites and unmanned spacecraft. Most recently I was Chief Engineer on Orbital Express so I guess I can say I have worked some pretty cool stuff! And it all started in my Grandmother's TV room!

Fed up with the dangerous eyesores of his son's scrap-built Flash Gordon-style spacecraft in the back yard, especially when the kids would set the wadded-newspaper "rocket engines" on fire, my patent-attorney father built a "real" rocket ship in the backyard of our Teaneck, N.J., home. The 16-foot-high, silver-painted wooden structure could fit half a dozen kids inside. Its rocket engines were made out of big empty tomato-juice cans so that my friends and I could fly around the solar system in style. I've been an interplanetary space nut ever since.

The image shows an article in the 1953 New York World Telegram that currently hangs outside my office in the JPL Space Flight Operations Facility.

Thankfully, my parents fostered my early interest in planes and spaceships, and Dad sent me half-way around the world to college at Texas A&M University to major in Aerospace Engineering. Since then, I have always worked in Aerospace.

It is inspiring to see so many countries and companies around the world investing in aviation and space technology, for the greater good. Aerospace has tremendous potential to bring the world together in more ways than we can presently forecast and comprehend.

Nevertheless, the grace and beauty of flight has always been with me - from designing and building my own model airplanes, rockets, and even small hot air balloons as a kid to my participation in AIAA as an adult, eventhough I work in the automotive industry - and will be forever.

So, I guess one could say that I was always interested in what became aerospace and as things worked out and the pieces fell into place, I became engrossed in the design of advanced space transportation stuff. I took the long way around in getting there after my high school days, however. I spent four years at Fairchild AFB followed by a couple of years in the Air Force Attache office of the American Embassy in Teheran, Iran.

We left Germany soon after, as my folks were sure there would be another war and returned to Oklahoma City, my Dad's home town. I continued my love of aviation, building many flying models, and even designing and flying my own. In 1942 I won a national contest and received a 1 yr scholarship to Aero Industries Tech. Inst. where I learned aero engineering before volunteering for the Army Air Corps, training as a Navigator and B-29 Flight Engineer. WW II over, I completed Aero Engineering on the GI Bill at UCLA, requested return to active duty and finally completed pilot training in the F-80 as a fighter pilot.

I was Squadron Commander of the 90th "Pair o' Dice" Fighter Squadron in Vietnam, flying 183 missions in the F-100. Since USAF retirement in 1969 my career has included Crew Systems Manager for the first US space station, Skylab, and many other exciting space project assignments.

In 1984, I made it to the US as an exchange student via a French university and got a summer job at the Johnson Space Center - something for which I will be eternally grateful. After adding a MSEE to my engineering degree I spent wonderful years working with the first Spacelab Life Sciences mission, and then with other projects.

The US Space Program gave me my dreams and motivated me to do extroardinary things. Still today, I draw strength and inspiration from it.

The catalyst was my sixth grade field trip to the Challenger Center at Wheeling-Jesuit University, where we participated in a mock mission tailored to an entire class's participation. So that summer after sixth grade I found myself at Space Camp in Titusville, Florida in the August heat saturated with moisture, unsure of what to expect. The training simulators, lectures on space history, and trips to Kennedy Space Center had already led me to forget that I had never lived away from family for so long, by the time my team embarked on our simulated missions. Compared to the class activity in West Virginia and with what I had learned all week, this was the real deal.

For the last mission I got to be flight director in mission control. There was something about the whole environment; the brightly lit buttons, the script, and the screens that struck a sense of excitement and importance. Sitting in front of the consule labeled flight director, communicating through my head set with the other team members, and watching our mission develop was just so invigorating. There was no doubt in my mind. I knew this would have to be a significant part of my life.

I knew right then and there that I HAD to be involved with America’s space program. I never stopped believing that.

I am extremely pleased that Sheffield Hallam University name has been mentioned while I was awarded the Cayley Award 2003 on 100 years of Aviation.

Also I was awarded PRIDE OF BOEING Award in 2005 by Boeing IRC Group for my contribution in 777-300ER Program at Boeing,Everett,Washington.

I am extremely thankful to Royal Aeronautical Society ,London and entire team of School of Engineering, Sheffiled Hallam University for helping me with Professional Career and bringing me in the limelight of Aerospace Industry in Europe and USA.

At SHU we developed excellent presentation skills, program management skills which are very important in the Engineering Management. Besides it helped us to develop the skill of completing the task within stipulated time which is very important in any industry to be successful in career. It also helped us in developing our planning skills which is so very important when we go to lead team in our Aerospace group. It really helped me to develop my leadership skill which is very helpful for me when I lead team of Engineers in my concern.

I have been able to achieve my Chartered Engineering with EC(UK) in association with Royal Aeronautical Society and also helped me to attain Chartered Scientist with Science Council(UK) due to the MSc program from SHU.MSc Advance Engineering program is excellent course for Engineers to develop them professional skills in there career. It has all ingredient developing your software design skills with extremely dedicated and talented faculty .Besides working on Finite Element Modeling skills is extremely useful from industry point of view. Product design team helps you in developing and coming with new ideas and concept. Project Management skills as part of program is extremely useful part of the course. Materials Engineering division is already world class being run by extremely outstanding Professors.

I had the challenging task of developing and testing Landing Gear and steering system for Dreamliner 787 Aircraft which was extremely challenging since it was totally new concept and I had to develop and test the new structure. Also at Boeing I have been involved with 777-200 LR which has turned out to be longest distance flying aircraft in the world. I have been involved with modeling & testing of interiors for 777-200LR/ER, 767,747,737 Aircrafts which were extremely time sensitive. Working with various aircraft new commodities is always challenge of its own kind,Also I enjoyed that besides developing and testing I had been able to successfully guide and help other Boeing Engineers on such complex design of 787 Aircrafts and help them to complete complex projects within time deadline has been extremely satisfying experience in my career. Working with new aircraft commodities is always a challenge because you have nothing similar to compare with. It has been excellent experience working with Boeing, one of the leading Aircraft manufacturers of the world. In last couple of years I have been working with latest Boeing programs which have been really satisfying for me from Professional Career point of view especially which involves new Finite Element Modeling and load generation from the models.Besides I have been also doing active flying in my Professional career.

As I began my college studies, like many in the "next generation," I fought against following in my Dad’s footsteps, beginning my studies in architecture and bouncing around for many years. Finally my Dad told me to try aerospace. I did, and I never looked back!

Shortly after beginning my career, I truly knew that aerospace was the right career for me when working on the Apollo flight control computer. The first time a Saturn V roared into space flying with a flight control system that I was responsible for, I was hooked for life! The intense feelings of tension in the moments prior to the first live launch just cannot be explained nor comprehended by anyone who has not experienced it. In those pre-launch moments, I re-examined in my mind every minute decision, every trade and study conducted, and every anomaly analyzed before the flight release. It HAD to be right! Finally, the intense thrill and euphoria of a successful launch created a passion for aerospace that has not been matched by anything else!

After 40 years, today I think the most amazing thing is that this passion never disappears. Since those days in the late 60’s, I have had the same intense feelings brought on by launches of spacecraft, manned and unmanned air vehicles, tactical missiles, and other aerospace vehicles. Each time, when first flight comes once again, after the tension is over, I “know” once again that this is a career that cannot be matched in terms of personal satisfaction. Those times that there are situations less than successful, the disappointment, agony, and soul searching that follows is equally as intense, but with a determination and commitment to "get it right." That determination then begins the whole cycle again, but with greater passion, if that is possible.

"When did you know?" is a question that every professional practioner in aerospace has an answer to. And it continues throughout our lives. That's why we're still here.

Upon completing an MS in Aero E, I reported to Convair in 1951 expecting to work on the F-102. Instead I was assigned to a small predesign group working on what was to become the Atlas ICBM. My airplane peers told me it was a Buck Rogers fantasy and I should get on a real program. After a few months of mentoring by Karel Bossart (father of the Atlas) and Hans Friedrich (V-2 veteran), I knew the Atlas was no fantasy and that space was the coming field. The year 2007 was the fiftieth anniversary of Atlas flight and the 56th year I had worked on it. I am still a "casual employee" of the United Launch Alliance giving advice on Atlas technical problems.

Richard Martin AIAA Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer

When I heard Chris Kraft’s voice that day in 1961 I knew how that love would be fulfilled. I didn’t want to be Alan Shepard, I wanted to be Chris Kraft. I already knew I was going to be an engineer, but in that moment I knew I would eventually be sending men into space. Even though I retired from NASA (Aeronautics) in August 2002, I couldn’t leave my passion behind. I came back from retirement and am currently Lead Safety Engineer at Futron Corporation supporting Orion Spacecraft development.

Hank Jarrett

Upon graduating from CCNY in 1948 I was hired by the Army as a rocket propulsion enginerer.

I got my license in 1988 and have been teaching in a unique high school program for the past six years to develop the next generation of Aeronautical and/or Astronautical Engineers. Feel the ride. I have enjoyed the ride so much that I am postponing retirement for another six and a half years.

I also had a cat about that time that I named "Sputnik". In middle school I corresponded with Mrs. Robert H. Goddard and did so until I graduated from college. For the last 30 years I've worked at JPL and the Marshall Space Flight Center....I still have to pinch myself.

Ralph Carruth Manager, Materials and Processes Laboratory, NASA MSFC

With that my involvement grew through the Redstone, Jupiter, Pershing, Saturn, Shuttle, and Space Station programs involvements. My association with the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center continued after my retirement in 1986 and joining the faculty of the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

William W. Vaughan, Ph.D. University of Alabama in Huntsville

I had my first airplane ride in 1940 in a 1927 Fairchild. I was playing baseball in Hunting Park in Philadelphia in 1940 when I saw a formation of P-38s fly over. I thought that I was seeing Buck Rogers. I signed up for aeronautical engineering when I entered RPI in 1942, and joined the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, now the AIAA, in 1944.

So I've been a member for 63 years. My only regret is that although I worked on almost everything that flies, I never got to work on any spacecraft.

I'm surprised to see there aren't more people who reference July 20, 1969 as an event or time when they knew, but I know one of my heroes does. Astronaut Jim Kelly has a great story you can see at james_kelly_profile.

In high school I focused my learning on the scientific subjects and prepared myself for entry in the engineering school at Purdue University where I majored in Aeronautical Engineering. I chose to enter the Aerospace Industry as an employee of North American Aviation in 1956. I retired from there in 1991 after participating in such exciting programs as the Hound Dog missile, Apollo, Minute Man and the Space Shuttle. The last program occupied in excess of twenty years as an Engineering Manager in propulsion and cryogenic systems.

It was very rewarding and I miss it.

But the moment I truly knew came when I was in kindergarten. We were going to start learning about the solar system, and the teacher hung a big poster of the space shuttle on the wall. I couldn't stop looking at those astronauts at work...and I knew.

I attended Auburn University and studied Aerospace Engineering then entered military sevice in Naval Aviation. For nearly forty years I have been an active participant in the field of aerospace as an active duty Naval Flight Officer and as a Department of the Navy Civilian flight test engineer. It has been a wonderful trip leading from the cotton farm in Alabama to the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River, Maryland. I will always be greatful I was able to make it.

I "knew" when my high school guidance councilor called me into his office and asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I don't recall the conversation specifically, but I knew I was going to college and I knew I wanted something that would contribute to society and make my family proud. If the order of the alphabet is arbitrary, then my choice of "Aeronautical Engineer" was arbitrary. Plus, I thought airplanes were cool.

That is the haphazard decision that started me down the aerospace path. I think it is important to say in this context because someone considering aerospace doesn't need to have some deeply-felt desire for aerospace. Someone choosing aerospace needs to have the desire to succeed, the desire to contribute materially to a scientific and technical endeavor, and the drive to stick with it.

I don't have an amazing Patty Wagstaff story, I'm just a normal human, but we normal humans can do good things in aerospace too.

Later, as the Mercury missions continued, I outfitted a closet in our basement as my own space capsule, and monitored each flight on a tinny transistor radio. As a middle school teacher, I recognized the excitement of a solo occupant being hurtled around the planet, and had my 11 year olds reproduce the Mercury spacecraft as a geometry project, followed by a simulated mission. In years that followed, my students have built full-scale replicas of Wright gliders, EVA suits and the shuttle flight deck, plus a host of other air and space craft. The seed of flight has found fertile soil.

As an eleven year-old boy brought up to worship the Creator, I'll never forget seeing magnificent pictures of Earth and hearing "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. . . ." as the Apollo 8 astronauts, spoke from space on Christmas Eve in 1968, quoting from Genesis, the first book of the Bible.

I believe Apollo 8 was the most important step in our exploration of space. Yes, Apollo 11, was marked by Neil Armstrong's (man's) first step on the moon, but the Christmas mission of Apollo 8 was the first time man completely escaped Earth's gravity to see, with his own eyes, the dark side of the moon. The flight was a worldwide phenomenon, with Apollo 8 providing the first pictures of God's creation taken by man from deep space, and the first live, up-close TV coverage of the moon's surface.

The first 10 lines of Genesis are the story of God's creation of the universe. Lunar module pilot William Anders read first: "God said 'Let there be light and there was light.'" Command pilot and navigator James Lovell read verses five through eight, covering the creation of day and night. Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman concluded with God separating land from sea, concluding with the line "and God saw that it was good."

The astronauts concluded their reading of the first 10 lines of Genesis with a message from Borman: "And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with a good night, good luck and a merry Christmas. God bless all of you . . . all of you on the good Earth."

The flight gave all Americans an emotional boost and helped end the year on an upbeat. I was extremely proud to be an American in a country blessed by God. I knew then and there that I wanted to be a part of the proud aerospace tradition that made America great in the 20th century.

I began seeking out other books and magazine articles having anything to do with space and spaceflight. Many people have noted how reading science fiction as a child got them interested in space and other technical careers. For me it was the reverse; I began reading science fiction because I was interested in space!

As a small child, I had no understanding of the difference between mathematics, science, and engineering, and I didn’t care. I’m not sure that I care all that much today. I did know that, whatever I did, it was going to have something to do with space. As time went by, I fell more broadly in love with the beauty of mathematics and its ability to describe the system of the world, with science and its quest to understand that world, and most of all with engineering and its fusion of mathematics, science, and human artistry, to create a world which had never been. But I remained in love with space, and later with flight in all its forms, and so that is where I chose to try to create that world.

That one book and that one decision shaped my life. I still have it, thanks to the wisdom of mothers in preserving things that their careless children would discard. In as big a surprise as I have ever had, Eileen Collins and her crew presented it to me after having flown it, without my knowledge, on STS-114. Today it is mounted on my wall, together with photographs and a certificate of authenticity from the crew attesting to the event of its flight aboard Discovery. I suppose that is as close as I will get to spaceflight.

The channel we watched had a map of the Earth that had the lines describing Glenn's planned orbits. There were little light bulbs occupying regular intervals along the lines. As Glenn's flight progressed, lights would be lit to indicate how far he had gone.

My teacher told us he was flying at 17,500 mph. I was really impressed. It seemed unimaginable that anyone could go all the way around the world in just 90 minutes. Recalling Jules Verne's "Around the World in Eighty Days," I thought that we really had him beat.

As I watched the flight progress, I decided right then that I wanted to work for NASA when I grew up. One decade later, I did.

It was the von Braun ,et. al. Colliers Series.

I even made a Web site up about it:

http://home.flash.net/~aajiv/bd/colliers.html

I have been involved with manned space flight since 1966 because of that issue of Collier's Magazine.

I would like to also give credit to the remarkable John W. Campbell, editor of the science fiction magazine Astounding/Analog. His insistence on accurate physical science and his discovery of writers such as Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, A.C. Clarke. It sometimes tends to be forgotten that modern prose science fiction with real science in it has been an inspiration for many scientists and engineers.

I went on to graduate from the Naval Academy and went to Flight School. I was designated a Naval Aviator in March, 1973 and went on to fly Phantoms and Tomcats!

I was fortunate to realize my dreams as a Navy test pilot and later as an astronaut - magic. Role models and a thirst for adventure were what motivated me.

Then in rapid succession, Alan Shepard flew suborbital on Freedom 7, Gus Grissom flew suborbital in Liberty Bell 7 and (after many delays) John Glenn finally made it into orbit in Friendship 7.

It was a Tuesday in February 1962 when John Glenn finally was able to launch. It was snowing hard in the New York area and schools were closed, so I spent the day inside watching television coverage of John Glenn's Flight.

I was hooked for life and I have spent the past 26 years working in Technical and Administrative jobs on the Space Shuttle and Space Station Programs.

One night when I was five, my father took us outside and I saw Echo-1A in orbit. I asked a lot of questions, and grasped some sense of how far up it was and what "orbit" was. Incredible.

Then animals went up. Then Shepard went up. Then Glenn. Then the whole space program. And in my lifetime we achieved the ever-dreamed-about: we stepped on another heavenly body - the Moon.

I'm trying to help get us to Mars. The ability is there, but unfortunately I will probably die before we have the political will.

Around the same time I became a fan of "Star Wars" and "the Six Million Dollar Man", both of which, of course, have strong space themes. Shortly thereafter I started building my own space models. By 1981 I was 9, and I distinctly remember getting up early in the morning to watch the first launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia. I was hooked!

Every time I hear an airplane overhead and look up to see what it is...I still know.

It was a family trip to the Kennedy Space Center at 4yrs old that launched my career in aerospace...in my presentations I share a photo of myself at the Cape at 4yrs old, then a photo of me on Launch Pad 39B with Columbia, as STS-90 was launching one of my student experiments into space...my eyes have always looked up to the stars!

I remember practicing baseball in south Huntsville and all of the sudden the ground started shaking (during an engine test). I also remember being at home and things rattling off the shelf and Mom running to grab them. In addition, my Dad at the time was responsible for some of the Army's testing on Redstone Arsenal and believe it or not there was as much Army missile/rocket motor testing on the Arsenal as there was at MSFC but obviously the motors were a lot smaller. Anyway, back then a missile test firing down a test range was a family affair. All the folks who worked together in the block house would invite their families out and we would bring picnic food and set up (safely) where we could see the missile leave the launch platform and watch, with much anticipation, the few seconds trajectory.

Anyway, I explored a few other fields of study before going off to college but decided on engineering mainly because of my experience growing up in Huntsville.

First of all I was enthralled by the Buck Rogers radio program which I dutifully listened to every day just after getting home from school. There I learned about rockets and space travel, flying belts and ray guns. I began to design rocket ships on paper when I should of been drawing flowers and people and animals, etc. Art class was always a problem for me because of that.

Next, our small town librarian found out about my interest and introduced me to Popular Mechanics. She saw to it that every month I was first in line to receive the latest addition. From that magazine I learned that maybe Buck Rogers wasn't so far fetched. Scientists and inventors were already imagining technology which would not actually exist until many years in the future. That was all it took to get me hooked.

This interest stayed with me and was strengthened all the way through a college degree in Electrical Engineering and a career in Aerospace begining in 1958, shortly after the first flight of Sputnik. I started my career on an air-to-air missile project with Canadair Ltd. and eventually worked with Boeing, in flight test/operations, on projects such as Bomarc, Minuteman and Apollo. My childhood dream was fulfilled by 8 years at the Kennedy Space Center in Apollo Launch Operations.

Now in retirement I devour the Aviation Week magazines, just as I did Popular Mechanics as a child, excited by the technolgy of today and the visions of things to come tomorrow in Aerospace.

I guess you could say I knew when I was sitting on the shoulders of a giant.

As a child, I attended many air shows with my father. He was a USAF mechanic during the Korean War, a civilian mechanic stationed at Scott AFB, and he retired from AVSCOM, the U.S. Army Aviation Systems Command.

In those days, the Thunderbirds were flying the F-100 Super Sabre, then the F-4 Phantom II, and now the F-16 Falcon. The Blue Angels were also flying F-4s, then the A-4 Sky Hawk, and now the F-18 Hornet.

My first job with McDonnell Douglas was on the F/A-18 A/B program as a structural dynamicist. I also worked on an F-4 flight demonstration program and directly applied knowledge of the A-4 on the T-45 Goshawk trainer.

Also, the Space Race played a big role. I hope we take the return to space challenge seriously.

By the time I was considering college, I had looked at majoring in Biochemistry. In fact, my on-campus visit to my eventual college of choice (Penn State) was spent touring that department. Then, in April of my senior year, STS-1 Columbia was launched. Seeing that launch was enough to "re-ignite" my passion for space by showing we, as a country, were back in business. I immediately changed course and chose to major in Aerospace Engineering, and have never looked back since.

My family encouraged my interest with books and airplane models, and many air show visits as possible. As I grew, so did my interested in aviation to include aerospace engineering. The plane models started to share shelve space with Estes rockets. Aviation Explores gave me my first taste of a structured study. When I attended the University of Colorado I really could not imagine studying anything other than aerospace engineering. After joining the Navy I have tried to stay as close to the air and space elements of the DoD as possible and still can't get enough!

My parents were tremendously supportive of my interest, and that proved key to my getting the opportunity to study and learn. They ensured that, every other weekend or so, we went to the Smithsonian. There, I gravitated to the old National Air Museum, a Quonset Hut next to the old Arts and Industries building, which housed the Bell X-1 (among other aircraft). Little did I then think that I would eventually have charge of it as Curator of Flight Testing and Flight Research in the 1970s!

They encouraged my building model aircraft, whether balsa or plastic, and soon the house was filled with them (and my house contines to be). But most of all, they encouraged me to read, Read, READ! Through books such as C. B. Colby's series on aircraft, memoirs such as Tony LeVier's Pilot, Bill Bridgeman's The Lonely Sky and (later) Scott Crossfield's Always Another Dawn, and magazines such as Air Progress, Flying, American Modeler, and Model Airplane News, I became aware of what was happening in contemporary aviation: the X-series unfolded over time, and we went through the drive from Sputnik through the early stages of the American manned spaceflight program. But it was aeronautics that held the greatest fascination for me, particularly flight testing and flight research. Going to Edwards became a Holy Grail, one that, fortunately I was able to achieve--I eventually worked there, on-and-off, for over a decade and, even more incredibly, had the occasional opportunity of flying from its fabled runway and land on its equally fabled lakebed.

I became aware of the AIAA through my participation in Science Fair competitions in the 1960s (one of my most treasured possessions is a copy of Ascher Shapiro's Shape and Flow that I received as a prize from the AIAA NCS). AIAA and its publications quickly became my technical "gold standard" against which I measured other work.

I credit some great individuals with encouraging my pursuit of aviation, and, indeed, making it possible for me to become an aerospace professional. Of all those I have studies or worked with, the following stand out: Ms. Margaret Myerly, a mathematics instructor at Laurel High School who had worked for the Fairchild company in the Second World War; Dr. Richard E. Thomas, Aerospace department chairman at the University of Maryland; Dr. Walter Rundell of the Dept of History; Dr. Eugene Emme, the first NASA Historian, and his deputy, Dr. Frank W. Anderson; Michael Collins and Melvin Zisfein, the Director and Deputy Director of the National Air and Space Museum; NASA DFRC External Relations Officer Ralph Jackson (a former Navy fighter pilot); and Air Force Maj. Gen. Phil Conley, the Commander of the Air Force Flight Test Center.

I owe a very, very great debt to all of these, and to all the many other aerospace professionals I have been fortunate enough to work with through the years. Looking back over my life, I have truly been blessed.

When I first knew I wanted to work in Aerospace is difficult to pin down but when my father took my brother and I to work when he was stationed in Germany at CFB Baden is a definite possibility. I was 8 years old at the time and was in awe of the several different fighter jets my dad let us play on. With the plan of becoming an Air Force Officer I graduated high school and was accepted into the Canadian Military Academy (The Royal Military College of Canada) as an Aerospace Engineer. I have since been fortunate enough to work at the Canadian Flight Test Center (The Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment) for five years as well as study and research with the US Navy at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. I am glad I got sucked into this obsession so early as it has lead me to almost everything I have ever enjoyed.

My youth was filled with plastic Revell models, Estes rockets and bicycle trips to the airport, not to mention unlimited sketches of past, present and future aerospace craft penciled into the margin of my English notes. I read about anything I could get my hands on in this area: first the entire Tom Swift series, then lots of science fiction including Bradbury, Asimov, Heinlein, and Clarke; National Geographic and Flying magazine were great sources as well. The reader service card in Flying was the starting place of a broad supply of material on all aspects of flight. Of course I still remember where I was when John Glenn orbited the earth and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

In school I was a math and science geek from the outset. This coupled with a curious nature and an aptitude for the mechanical, meant I was destined to be an engineer. I looked for the schools with Aerospace Programs and narrowed it down to a short list and ended up at Georgia Tech. I joined the Flying Club there even before I registered for courses. Mostly 150s, 172s it was $10 per hour wet and another $10 for an instructor. Course work got in the way in the first quarter and I returned to Cincinnati before I soloed. Still not a bad way to start college.

Working retail over the holidays that year I made enough money to fly at a local fixed base operator. Curious enough I soloed on a snowing December day in 1974 at Lunken Airport. I have stayed current for the last 35 years and have been privileged enough to work in this exciting and rewarding industry.

When did I know? Honestly, for as long as I can remember. A career in this industry is all I ever remember thinking about. And I am thrilled to say it has been all I had wished for and more. Every day is a new challenge and a new thrill. The pace of technology is fast and continuous learning a true hallmark of what we do. I cannot imagine ever doing anything else.

I turned 13 that year. I had followed NASA's missions closely since third grade and watched them all on TV. I kept articles from the newspaper on the Gemini missions. I had a Revelle model of Gemini in my room and learned about the systems and knew the names of the astronauts on each mission. I was a space buff as I became a teenager.

But, 1968 had much tragedy coming out of our TV. The war in Vietnam was pulling the country apart with daily reports of the numbers killed and widespread protests. One April morning Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination was reported. And then Bobby Kennedy was killed. There were riots in Chicago at the Democratic Party convention where the police beat protestors sending dozens to hospitals. I was seeing so much destruction and dissention and it was all so disheartening.

And then there was Christmas. NASA made the first human space flight around the moon: Apollo 8. The huge Saturn V rocket launched three men from the earth to circle the moon. I remember that Christmas Eve we had a big family get together and we watched on a new color TV as the Apollo 8 crew read from Genesis as we saw a small blue and white globe through their window. Except for those 3 men, all of humanity was there on the blue and white globe. With that perspective of Earth, I wondered, why all the destruction and dissention in such a beautiful, fragile place. It was an inspired moment in life that became an epiphany.

In 1968, I knew I wanted to be a part of the team that works together to explore space. I had seen enough killing and destruction. I was committed to being on the team to explore space. I would do work that inspired people to work together constructively exploring our universe.

b) During WWII, I was in Italy, a 17-year-old first sergeant in the infantry. I remember trudging down a muddy road, looking up at a squadron of B-24s, and saying to myself,"Why am I down here and not up there"? Once back in the U.S. I took advantage of the GI Bill, and learned to fly and enrolled in the Aeronautical Engineering School at Georgia Tech. The rest is history.

So there you are. A grade school dare plus a muddy road in Italy, that's what got me started.

At 6 I announced to my parents I was going to study planes at MIT. My parents humored my whims and took me to museums, launched rockets, and built an inflatable planetarium out of large sheets of black plastic, but even they didn’t realize I would get to live out my dreams. As for the neighbor boy, he also majored in aerospace engineering in college and we still go home to watch the planes.

I can’t remember a time in my life that I wasn’t enthralled by aviation. It may have started when my father talked a stewardess at Houston Hobby Airport into letting me sit in the cockpit of a DC-3 when I was three years old. I still remember that event. Growing up I built model airplanes and had heroes like Jimmy Doolittle, Chuck Yeager and Scott Crossfield. It was my privilege to call these gentlemen friends later in my life.

During my freshman year in college in 1955 I did a research paper on rockets and missiles. That research told me that people were going to be flying in space in the not too distant future. I wanted to be one of them.

However, in October, 1957 with the flight of Sputnik I knew I wasn’t going to have time to complete what I thought were the necessary qualifications in time to be one of the first. A degree in Aeronautical Engineering was a step in the right direction. The University of Texas changed the name of the degree in my senior year to Aerospace Engineering to keep up with the times. That started opening doors for me leading to a Naval Aviation career, test pilot school, astronaut selection and eventually a NASA and industry management career.

After a forty-plus-year career in aerospace, I can definitely say it was the right choice for me.

WHY AIAA

As an Aeronautical Engineering student at the University of Texas in Austin it was a natural thing for me to join the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences (IAS). It provided research material and good information about the field. I joined the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) later in my career at NASA. AIAA was formed from the old IAS and the American Rocket Society (ARS). Again, it provided me with important information as to what new advances were being made in Aerospace.

The real bonus I received from AIAA was when I was in a leadership position at Thiokol. The Institute was the ideal networking organization to meet the movers and shakers in the business. That was especially true at the major AIAA conferences like the Joint Propulsion Conference. Staying connected is essential in any business and in Aerospace; AIAA is the organization that provides that connection.

I am 20

Lucky to be a student of the famous Ecole Polytechnique in Paris

Happy to be its rugby team captain, my most important occupation at that time...

4th of October 1957

Sputnik is in orbit, it's a big surprise, a tremendous event

We can hear its bip bip song

I know I will "do this"

This? Rocketry

I start working hard, I become a propellant engineer

A year later I am at Colomb Bechar, Sahara, starting to launch rockets....

July 2000, Huntsville Alabama

I am blessed to deliver the "Luncheon Award Speech" of the AIAA Propulsion Conference

A 50-minute speech in english to 1500 people. Among them new faces. What a moment for an old French guy!!

But it works. They listen. Their eyes are shining, they still like space, they still desire space ventures

I am retired. Now I know the best is to come

What sealed my desire to learn to fly was an invite to fly with my "cousin" Jeff Smith on a 1 hour orientation flight in a Cessna 172 from the Torrance airport. (Jeff's dad was a UAL pilot and his mom and mine were "stews" together for AA and life long friends...so they were always called Uncle and Aunt in our home...hence "cousin".) I think I was 13 and the $5 orientation flight was a gift to Jeff from his parents for his 13th. Fortunately, he invited me to come along. I'll never forget the wonders of that experience as we flew out over the Pacific and around the Palos Verdes peninsula and back to land. When we parked, I distinctly remember asking the pilot if he was paid to do this? He said, "of course, this is my job". I couldn't imagine some one paying you to have that much fun and excitement...so I decided then and there that I wanted to be a pilot.