Thursday, November 19, 2009

Houston NASA Interview

Before you all get super excited for me that I interviewed with NASA, I have to tell you that after all that interviewing they decided to go with a different candidate who "had more of the skills they were looking for." However, I had a fantastic experience in Houston and I got to see some really cool things so I'm really glad I went.

Interview Day 2

Today was the best day of all. I got to relax quite a bit more. One of the guys I met the day before made a few special "phone calls" to get me on the best tours. The first tour I went on was of the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory. This is where they have the giant swimming pool that the astronauts go in to simulate weightlessness. It was really cool. This astronaut was kind enough to take a picture with me before they put him in the water. If you look closely, you can see him smiling at the camera. :)










Then we went to the flight simulator. This was a full functioning simulator of the spaceship, it tipped back and we did a countdown to go up into space, and then when we came back in, I got to land the spacecraft on the runway. The ride wasn't too bumpy either.

















Finally, I got to go to Building 9 (I don't remember the actual name for it), but it's where they have a lot of life sized equipment that they can use to determine how to pack things, or if items will fit in certain areas. They had a full sized space ship, pieces of the space station. And I can't remember what exactly this is, but I think it's used to land on the moon. After my fun day, I headed back to the airport to fly home.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Interview Day 1


Today, I headed to NASA to interview. I had about 7 interviews with several different people. Including a lunch interview with 5 people. It was pretty crazy, but fun to meet so many people and to get so many perspectives on working there. By the time I left at about 5pm, I was completely exhausted.

My friend, Chris, from Colorado Springs had moved down to Houston, so he drove down to my hotel to visit. We walked around the Boardwalk, they had amusement park rides, and a fantastic roller coaster. We were bummed however when we went to ride the roller coaster only to discover it was closed cause they were waiting on a part.