Data From: McCarthy, Niall. "Some Tech Internships Pay More Than $75,000 A Year." Statista The Statistics

What are the most important skills an astronaut should have m?

First of all, the basic requirement is a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field, and 3 years of experience (which can also be substituted for by an advanced degree). Other than that, operational experience (things with a technical/active/hands on nature like flying airplanes, SCUBA diving, taking things apart and putting them back together, basic fix-it skills, etc. etc.) is very important, as this is an integral aspect of every day of a space mission.  What we call “expeditionary skills” are also essential, basically the types of things you try to instill in your children, like how to play nicely with others, self care, team care, etc.  I like to think about this on the lines of a camping trip and who you would like to have along with you …someone that is competent and can take good care of themselves and their equipment, someone that contributes to the team and helps with group tasks, someone that is good natured and pleasant to be around, etc., someone fun!  These things are increasingly important now that we are regularly doing long duration missions (typical International Space Station mission is 6 months).  Experience living in extreme/remote/isolated environments with small teams is also useful, as it is similar to what we experience as astronauts.     

43 Acres of Aerospace: NASA Co-Op #2 Week Five & Six

If you think NASA is dead then you have probably never personally visited a NASA Center. 27 Johnson Space students had the awesome opportunity to tour the Michoud (Meh-shood) Assembly Facility. Here the Space Launch System (SLS), largest rocket in the world with 20% more thrust than Saturn V, is being built. SLS will send an unmanned Orion Space Craft around the Moon in Fall of 2018. In the history of spaceflight unmanned missions are common to ensure astronauts will be safe. The 43 acre indoor assembly facility is so large you have to ride a tram indoors for a tour. We saw liquid nitrogen tanks, liquid oxygen tanks, rings, domes and all the tools to safely weld/ fasten these parts together. Employees could be seen in hard hats and florescent yellow vests monitoring the tank's construction and creation of parts.

North of Michoud is Stennis Space Center, masters of engine tests and keeper of partners across the US Government. Buildings dedicated to work done by the Navy, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Universities and US Geological Survey for maximum collaboration. Stennis is unique because it is surrounded by a 125,000 acre acoustical buffer zone comprised of local trees. Despite buffer efforts past tests have been known to shatter windows! We were scheduled to see an engine test at test stand A above but we unfortunately missed due to engine technical difficulties. Aerospace engineering is hard guys, I'm glad they are doing what they got to do to ensure a successful mission.

I encourage you to visit a NASA center and take a tour of the facilities offered by the respective center's visitor centers. See for your self the progress toward our journey to mars. Johnson Space offers a tram tour to Mission Control, Mock Up Facility and the Shuttle Systems Test Facility. I am sure other centers offer similar opportunities. NASA visitor centers can be found here.

Defrag 2014's Take On Data Security

As reflected by our year of high traffic social media platforms, large scale company hacks, and increased amount of data, security of that data has become a top priority in tech. Defrag had a series of break out sessions that featured security. Hot topics highly discussed this afternoon have included the slippery slope of "who owns your data?" presented by Lorinda Brandon from SmartBear, "what's in your trash" explored by Rory O'Rouke, and online security challenges revealed by Rami Essaid of Distil Networks.

The biggest lie on the internet, according to Brandon, is that "you read the Terms Of Use". Let's be honest, we all quickly check the "read" box, and do not bother to even open the privacy policy. Why? To even understand the ramifications of what you are agreeing to would take hours and still be missing details. Brandon shared her hours long experience picking apart Samsung's privacy policy and found that Samsung "Share(s) information for purposes of business and ecosystem". Our data and how businesses use it for their own profitable benefit can be unclear. As innovators in tech it is necessary to be mindful of other's data and be transparent with users.

Bounce.io utilizes digital waste by finding treasure in trash, taking data on what kinds of emails "bounce back" to a user and why it was kicked out.  A cool idea O'Rouke of Bounce.io mentioned was a user comparing emails in their spam about penny stocks to the actual performance of that penny stock in the market. If information about a stock ends up in your spam, does that indicate that the stock is a poor investment.

2014 has been filled with a "storm of security attacks" as pointed out by Essaid with the security hacking of Target, Sears, and Home Depot. Unfortunately, hacking has become a profession where it pays to be bad; easy, cheap, low risk, and a big payoff. One of the biggest factors that companies are missing is the idea of prevention accompanied by a plan for reaction if an attack occurs. An attack is inevitable, as the data illustrates with the thousands of bots in existence, so not having a reaction plan is foolish. An interesting scenario Essaid pointed out your website may not be the one that is initially hacked into, yet another website's user names and passwords can be hacked and then bots use these stolen usernames and passwords to access your website's accounts.

How to get involved...

- Become aware of your data footprint and who shares your data

- Advocate for transparency about how companies use your data

- Check security settings on your social media

- If in the tech industry, ensure your company is prepared for security breach

NASA Co-Op Week 12: Makers & 3D Printers

Well-being of a generation can be measured by the number of children who attend a Maker Faire. Houston's George R Brown Convention Center was filled with programmers, 3D printers,hand made creations, geeky gear and folks passionate about their ability to create. Houston Maker Faire featured 150 booths, soap makers, FIRST/ VEX robotics teams, LEGO builders and cosplay costume makers. Us NASA interns and Co-Ops set up a booth sharing about career opportunities, letting students share ideas with NASA and coloring pages with kids. Folks tried on an Apollo 11 helmet and space walk glove.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

Apply for a NASA internship open now, login to apply. Sooner the better. There are also fellowships and scholarships available: https://intern.nasa.gov/ossi/web/students/login/

Mentor a FIRST Robotics team. Teams with students age K-12:

http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/coachesmentors

Apply to be a NASA Community College Aerospace Scholar open now: https://nas.okstate.edu/ncas/

Activity sheets for students: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/johnson/about/resources/jscfacts/activity_coloring_sheets.html

Co-Op for NASA. What does this mean? Flip-flop between working at NASA and studying in college. This is how NASA hires a majority of their Civil Servants. Job openings are updated every week or so: http://nasajobs.nasa.gov/studentopps/employment/opportunities.htm

Accomplishments this week at NASA: https://youtu.be/4iaScOqvI64

Full-time positions at NASA. Use this website and simply search "NASA": https://www.usajobs.gov/

Day in the life of an engineering major: Notes so long you have to take a picture of the white board. Senior who has this life thing figured out 3D printing a robotic arm built with video game controller parts. TA makes fun of us for being lazy and taking pictures of the chalk board - revolt by taking selfies with the chalk board. Full wave bridge rectifier decided to cooperate with the breadboard today producing a clean image on the oscilloscope. Instead of causing stack overflows stability of a system can be diagnosed when looking at a block diagram. Professor judges the mess of clamps connected to super ground. Realizing you actually need to be employed after college, cleaning up and attending a job fair. Realizing everyone is having a post college employment crisis, talking to as many recruiters as possible while snagging free company swag.

Circuit board I made at a NASA internship at Glenn Research Center summer of 2013 for a Solar Array Regulator.

Soon I will be returning to mission control for my fourth Co-Op tour at NASA Johnson Space Center. I will be joining Inventory Stowage Officers (ISO) team in mission control. ISO ensures supplies and experiments are delivered to the International Space Station, completed experiments return to Earth in one piece and space garbage successfully burns up in the atmosphere and does not land in someone's backyard. Last  mission control Co-Op I sat console with ISO and watched Kjell Lindgren load the Japanese HTV-5 cargo ship with garbage playfully floating through station with the bags of garbage. I have a feeling ISO will be busy after a long pattern of cargo ship failures and the most recent Russian Progress 65 cargo failure (as SpaceX calls it, rapid unscheduled disassembly) transporting a space toilet, updated space suits and Christmas presents for the astronauts from their families. I expect work I will be doing with ISO will include logistics work on what has priority to be sent up to space station and collaborating with scientists about how their experiment with be stored. Additionally, Super Bowl LI in Houston and the Hidden Figures premiere are NASA related events I am looking forward to.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

* Often a live feed of Houston's Mission Control is streamed on NASA TV. My colleagues enjoy trying to catch me picking my nose when sitting console.

* Learn about the programmers behind the Apollo mission in the new movie Hidden Figures.

* Check out everything NASA accomplished in 2016 jam packed in a 3.5 minute video.

* Learn programming with Code.org, Elementary, Middle School, High School and Beyond.

Teams watch robots compete at a FIRST Robotics Regional in Minnesota

Space Walks & Garbage: NASA Co-Op #3 Week One

Space Garbage

Familiarized myself with the Inventory and Stowage Officer (ISO) team this week. They are a console position Mission Control that is in charge of managing the inventory and stowage of all US items on board the International Space Station (ISS). ISO prepares products for upcoming real-time operations and coordinates with other consoles regarding stowage plans. ISO is responsible for directing the crew to consolidate, relocate, audit, and unload a visiting vehicle. ISO as well as the Mission Control consoles’ mantra is to distill all information and procedures to make astronaut’s life easier. This is critical because astronauts have to navigate a lot of factors folks on ground don’t have to like; CO2 clustering around their face due to lack of gravity causing drowsiness, homesickness, isolation and general aggregations of communication challenges.

This week we focused on double checking the list of garbage that will burn up in Earth’s atmosphere in Japanese JAXA’s HTV6 cargo ship. Tediously we reviewed each item so nothing got thrown away that shouldn’t and items that would stink up the station were not missed.

Spacewalk

Conducted on the job training in Mission Control's support room called MPSR  (Multi-Purpose Support Room, pronounced "mipser") during the Friday the Thirteenth spacewalk. With an official Mission Control headset I followed along the astronauts tasks. Astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Thomas Pesquet spacewalked outside of ISS to update power systems. Upgrading power system of ISS was the overall goal of this month’s suite of Extra Vehicular Activities. Three 428lb Lithium-Ion batteries replaced nickel hydrogen batteries to store power for ISS during this spacewalk. Before the conclusion of the spacewalk engineers in mission control confirmed the batteries’ integration and initial power storage operations.

MPSRs usually use multi-view video with six images of ISS’ exterior and the crew to observe tasks being completed. They listen in on live loops to the Flight Director’s final calls, CAPCOM’s instructions and astronaut’s questions. If necessary MPSR operators can relay to their counterparts in front room Mission Control (FCR-1) information that can be filtered and relayed to Flight.

During the spacewalk there are many glove checks to check for leaks and anomalies. These gloves are impressively engineered to be thick enough to pressurize protect you from space yet gentle enough to allow you to feel space station through them. Astronauts could confirm with Mission Control that batteries were correctly mounted into place by describing drill rotations, torque and light sensor reading on the hand tool.

WAYS TO GET INVOLVED

Intern at NASA, year round, summer, spring or fall semesters.

Co-Op at NASA (Pathways Internship) and get sworn in as a Civil Servant.

Full-time employment at NASA opportunities!

This week's NASA achievements.

Everything about Mission Control from a Flight Director

Cargo Ship Choreography: NASA Co-Op #3 Day One

Today I returned to Mission Control to support the ISO (Inventory Stowage Officers) console. This team is in charge of packing cargo ships, choreographing the unloading of cargo ships and letting astronauts know where they misplaced their socks. Basically, ISO knows where everything is in the bird's nest that is the International Space Station.

My task is to choreograph the unloading of a cargo ship docked to space station. This is no ordinary choreography however, I will be using a device I created training for with another Mission Control in an earlier Co-Op. In the Fall of 2015 I produced a training video for a device that has the potential to make difficult procedures easier for astronauts. Astronaut Scott Kelly and Tim Peake ended up using this training in space. This week I will be familiarizing myself with standard unloading procedures, watching videos of astronauts testing this new device and questioning what is the hardest part of unloading that could be made easier with this device.

In layman's terms - I am choreographing the unloading of a cargo ship onto space station that the astronauts will perform by using a helpful device.

My battle station.

Saturn V stage.