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> This is kind of a weird take. I used to work at JPL but I didn't stay due to it not being the right cultural fit for me.

Any war stories you want to share?



Nothing particularly interesting. I was very junior during my time there, working modeling and simulation tools for spacecraft that had already been up for over a decade.

I did get to be present and watch the telemetry stream cut out as Cassini (purposely) crashed into the Saturnian atmosphere and was obliterated. Lots of people had spent two decades of their lives with that spacecraft. Many cheered and many cried.


> I did get to be present and watch the telemetry stream cut out as Cassini (purposely) crashed into the Saturnian atmosphere and was obliterated. Lots of people had spent two decades of their lives with that spacecraft. Many cheered and many cried.

I remember this well, I saw the footage of the footage they shot during the event on the lawn at CalTech as it happened in a presentation I attended with one of the members of the program at CU Boulder a few days/weeks after the 'end of mission.'

It looked incredibly emotive, did you decide to leave JPL for private Industry?

I can't imagine you wanted to stay in the public sector (NASA) if that is how you felt about it; I say that despite having conflicting views from two who worked at the AIMS program: Josiah Zayner (Biohacker) was disgruntled, whereas Shannon Rupert (Director of MDRS) has continued her work with both Mars Society and NASA.


I answered more in depth about why I left above, but basically the work environment felt a little too academic and a little too static for my liking Aerospace is my passion, so I’m still in that world. But just somewhere in private industry where things change a little more rapidly.




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