First Week as a NASA Intern

Wow, I mean first I really can't believe I got an internship with NASA being that it is so competitive. I began applying at the end of June and got an offer at the end of July for a Software/Machine Learning position with the Safety department at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. Probably the most important phone call I have ever received.

My first week has been VERY exciting and interesting. I got to MD just after the front end of hurricane Hilary blew through Las Vegas. It was a pretty chill week leading up to my first day. Just relaxed and caught up on some work. This last Monday, the 28th, was my first official day and it was a wild one. Orientation began at 9am and carried on until noon. I got to meet with some of the other interns, collected a bunch of goodies and speak with some of the employees that were there to present us with some of the cool groups within the NASA ecosystem. After that I collected my badge and then met with my mentor. She is so sweet, and I'm honored that she selected me to work with her! We discussed the project that myself and another intern whom I will be working with through this fall internship will be working on.

Goddard is a massive campus with 37 buildings that sit on 1270 acres (about twice the area of Central Park in New York City) of land! I ended my day with a tour of a building that has a bunch of mission monitoring and communications. Extremely cool. My second day began with me going to the Goddard Awards Ceremony. Wild experience, it was very cool to see who and what people/teams get recognized for at NASA. After the Ceremony, I got another tour of a few more buildings. One including where they built and tested the James Webb Space Telescope! Now, the Roman Space Telescope is being worked on there and I was able to see up close some of the components in the clean room! I rounded out my second day with some more research on how to go about our project. Goddard employees still operate on a hybrid work schedule, so the rest of my week was conducted in my apartment because my mentor was going to be out of the office. I worked with my partner, and we are currently mapping out our project for a final project proposal to present to our mentor. 

So far this has been a surreal experience and I'm happy to be here! I think the next 15 weeks will be a blast and I'm excited to learn as much as possible.

Closing Remarks

It has been a real pleasure to be in this class. I learned quite a bit about things that I thought I knew already. To me that's always nice because it fills in the holes that were burned into your memory. I made a lot of mistakes along the way when it came to Bonus quizzes and assignments. Contrary to popular belief is also a good thing. I think it's one of the best ways to learn something. You get to see exactly how NOT to do something :) All in all, this semester was difficult not because of the work from class to class that was for the most part a breeze, but when work, personal stuff and school all gets thrown into the metaphorical blender and pour back out, things become a bit more difficult to manage. I'm grateful that I had some really understanding professors this semester. I'm glad that I believe in myself enough to keep pushing it sure did pay off. This is not a farewell to everyone, as I'm sure I'll see some of you around the campuses eventually, but this is a farewell to use as a class. Congrats to everyone who stuck around until the end! You did great. And with that I would like to leave you guys with one of my favorite philosophers, Alan Watts. Because you never really know what life throws at you is a good thing or a bad thing.

A10 + Mothers day

I am extremely glad I got to give an improved presentation. I really do take pride in preparing my own PowerPoint presentation from start to finish without any help. It was a journey. I am also grateful that it was on a topic that I am passionate about yet again. If I had to do any research, I would have been doomed. I am looking forward to knocking out some of the last few assignments here for IS101. It will be a bit of a grind, but I think I can do it. I feel like I have managed quite the workload this semester already going the little extra mile will not be too bad.
 
Aside from all of that, Happy Mother's Day to all of the moms out there. I did the Tour De France and dropped off racks of ribs to as many friends as I could, rounding it all out with the last rack of ribs for my mother. NOTE: She requested the ribs. Anyway, it has been a whirlwind of a semester, but I am glad I could finish out strong!

Set in Motion

Ariane 5 Rocket - James Webb Space Telescope
December 2021

I never would have guessed it but, motion paths actually really caught my attention. They operate like spline paths in any 3D animating software. This is pretty huge. It allows a presenter to really take control of a slide and get into some very interesting and complex animations. I am planning to make really good use of motion paths for my next PowerPoint presentation. being that my topic will once again be based around rockets, it's only fitting that I give the presentation some life. I hope everyone is prepared for a crash course in Rocketry! I very much want to tease my own rocket in this post but I will save it for class! Instead, here is a quick introduction on how we keep things in orbit, consider the flight path a motion path :)

 

Five Down, Two To Go

So it seems as if I have somehow managed to knock out 5/7 MOS exams. I am only two shy of achieving MOS Expert and that sounds like a title I very much would like to obtain. My plan for Word Expert is to take some time tonight to go over what else needs to be learned in order to knock out that exam. I'm not really expecting it to take very long honestly. However, for Excel Expert, I have already begun looking into what is required, only because I expect it to be slightly more difficult. None the less, I think I can knock both of these out!

MOS Associate

Today, I took the MO-300 exam and passed with flying colors. This means that I have now achieved MOS Associate! This is pretty exciting but the journey isn't quite over yet. I'm shooting for a homerun this semester. My next plan is to conquer Outlook and Access. After taking those down I will put my sights on Word Expert and then finally Excel Expert. I believe I accomplish this with some gritty effort! In addition to MOS in parallel I also went for some other certifications via edX. For those who are not familiar, edX was founded by scientist from MIT and Harvard. Their website offers various courses covering a plethora of subjects. I'm taking the Data Science courses through them. I managed to squeeze out an additional 4 certifications!

Quantum Conundrum

For some time now computer scientist have known of a looming issue with quantum computers. You see, there is need to encrypt data as it travels from one destination to the next typically this is not really an issue for use today as most applications and web services handle encryption without the user really needing to even know of its existence. Majority of the keys to decrypt data would take absolute ages to brute force on a typical computer. But, a quantum computer could crack the key before you could finish your morning coffee. This very clearly is a problem for the near future. As quantum computers could make their way into the hands of bad actors. Lots and lots of data could potentially be at risk. However there is a few current solutions to change the way encryption is handled. I find this to be rather fascinating as it gets into matrices and extreme convolutions to keep data safe and protected for prying eyes.

Take a look into the potential future of how your files, passwords and even currency could be protected!

Data Visualization

The current world moves extremely fast and as it stands there are many different people living here. Not everyone speaks a common language and not everyone can interpret a message the exact same. However, when it comes to data, being capable of displaying data in a way that nearly anyone can understand and interpret is an incredible skill. I recently finished an online course on data visualization as we were in the middle of learning Excel, thus 5.8.1 really stood out to me. In the course, I primarily use R programming language to wrangle and display data, but a vast majority of the data collected nowadays is compiled in Excel. So being able to quickly plot graphs and charts in Excel natively to get a general overview of the data that is in front of me is incredibly convenient. Plus, it is much much easier to plot graphs in Excel than in R! Take a look at this complex "Cheat Sheet" that I received from the course. 

So, would you rather plot in Excel or R??

Plant an Idea

Several years ago Tim Ellis had a very interesting idea. He wanted to take the speed and rapid prototyping of traditional 3D printing and combine it with the complexity of Aerospace. After many grueling days of trial by fire and facing defeat of engines failing to produce enough thrust or prints ultimately failing, Tim and his team at Relativity Space persevered. 

Now, their company became the first to ever launch a 3D printed rocket. Terran One successfully launched on 22nd March 2023 paving the way for rocket manufacturing and providing crucial data for Relativity's next fully reusable rocket Terran R. Since the launch the team has been analyzing the data and printing the necessary changes to their engines and other systems to take Terran One into a full orbit.

Terran 1 is currently 85% 3D printed. The primary components that are not 3D printed are the electronics, plumbing lines, and hardware such as nuts, bolts etc. 

The very impressive launch from 22nd March 2023

A glimpse of how these rockets are produced!

Pace yourself!

I personally haven't really had a terrible time with test taking, however, I have taken some extremely difficult and rare tests that most people will never have to experience, luckily for them. I have taken the Defense Language Aptitude Battery (DLAB) test which is a test that aside from the questions being asked is in an entirely made up language. This test was issued to me by the U.S. Military to determine how well someone can decipher a foreign language. There was no preparation for this test for me, I simply agreed to take this 3 hour long mind splitting test and then took it. I have taken the Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT) which is a process that spans 3 days and is entirely in a foreign language testing oral, hearing and reading comprehension. 

To me, a major contributing reason as to why people struggle with tests is time management. I can say with confidence that keeping a solid pace is incredibly important. There will often be questions in your test taking career that stump you beyond belief and cause you to panic. Your frustration can build and cause you not to think clearly for the following questions. If possible, mark these questions for review and go back later. There is no shame nor harm in doing such a thing. Time management is even easier when you know how many questions will be on the test and how much time is allotted to take said test. Determine a realistic and adequate time goal for answering each question. If are able to keep a nice and steady pace and finish with 10-20 mins left on the clock you have ample time to go back and rethink those previous questions that you could not quite put your finger on. 

If anyone is interested in the DLAB, which I think is probably the most unique test I have ever taken, there will be a link below and you can take a small simplified practice test! (NOTE: There may be a few answers that are actually incorrect. My guess is that the multiple choices were moved around in their positions but the answer key was not adjusted.)

DLAB Practice Tests

Cite Your Sources

This semester I made the ambitious choice to take an 8-week English 101 class. This meant that we would be writing papers at a much quicker rate than a typical 16-week class. I saw this not as a burden but as an opportunity to deliver papers that were of a higher caliber than what I am use to. One of the biggest struggles of writing such papers I am my opinion is the need to cite information. There are many times that I can recall data or events that I have learned about but can not at the moment of writing remember the source or sources over lap from paper to paper. Learning how to properly use the citations and bibliography section in the references tab certainly decreased the amount of time that I spent on sources. 

I took advantage of the placeholder citations more times than I could even recall. This allowed me to quickly make a "note" that I should cite a particular piece of information without having to come to a dead stop in the writing process. In addition to this, being able to plug in all of my citations in one sitting after writing my entire papers and quickly go through and plug them all into their correct locations was a much better way of handling source material. Anyways if anyone is interested in reading a few of my papers below are links to two of my papers. Both of which I wrote for my English 101 class. 

Interstellar Impact On Climate Change - An analysis of the film Interstellar and its take on climate change.

This Revolution Will Be Televised - An argument paper based around socialism and the Black Panther Party

Beyond The Ribbon

It is no secret that the ribbon in just about any major application is beyond useful. But the chapter about features and tools that are in other menus not found in the primary ribbon most definitely takes the cake for "Best Features to Know About". Knowing about extremely helpful short cuts and things of that nature in almost all software can make you far more efficient. If you repeat a simple task enough times but are able to do it in a fraction of the amount of time can end up saving hours upon hours of effort. 

There isn't too many exciting things to show for such a topic but I did manage to find a potentially helpful video about iPhone shortcuts.

I do a lot of CAD design for work. Without knowing how to reach the lesser known menus or using the shortcuts for a feature that most people never think about when making parts sets us ahead of a lot of our competition when it comes to developing exceptional parts. The best part of this chapter though is that I have already applied most of these shortcuts and used some of these more elusive features to write some of my papers for other classes!

SQL Vulnerabilities and Defense

Though we didn't go over this as an assignment SQL definitely caught my eye. This was primarily because of my small background in coding and Cyber security. I remember a few years back that many of my friends who also were majoring in Computer Science, complained for weeks about having to learn SQL. But personally I remember it more from the cyber security field. SQL Injections are a rather common malicious attack. Essentially a hacker would insert SQL code to gain access to information that wouldn't be displayed to any user. 

About 1/4 of all applications are vulnerable to an SQL injection. A few ways a developer can defend against a SQL attack is by properly securing their databases with other coding languages such as Java, PHP, and .NET. It is also recommended for developers to keep their software up to date because old libraries and packages that once were secure can be exploited. This may be random but there is always some sort of hack taking place at any given moment! First step of prevention is being aware of the problems!

Someone who can explain SQL Injections far better than me :)

& Pretty cool site I visit often, here you can view live cyber attacks being reported!

Internet Protocol

This chapter really stood out to me because it reminds me of any episode of Mr. Robot. Though I know what all of the key terms function I didn't really know them all by their long for names. Its definitely nice to have this chapter serve as a good remind and cheat sheet whenever I forget one by name. 

I use a lot of electronics such as Raspberry Pi's, Arduinos, and Esp32 boards for prototyping of robots and well, anything that needs a small computer. One of the main things that I always find myself doing is getting them to either communicate with each other or perform a function over a network. Knowing things such as IP addresses for each device and HTTP/HTTPS address for the devices to go to.

Binary Numbers

The main thing I enjoyed about chapter one was that it was a solid refresher for me. There a many gears and gizmos that go on with computing and computers that I really do not spend much time thinking about in depth anymore so it is nice to have a good review. 

The primary reason why binary was one of my favorite parts of chapter one is because a while back one of my brothers asked if I could write binary. I didn't and still do not, but it really sounded interesting to learn. I simply never started the task because it seemed a bit daunting. Going over binary a bit in lab sim sort of opened me back up to the idea and the very useless task of learning binary. I will give it a good shot and see where I go from here!

Lastly, as a classic teaching in programing here is my textbook first output for binary code!

00100010 01001000 01100101 01101100 01101100 01101111 00100000 01010111 01101111 01110010 01101100 01100100 00100001 00100010 

Flight Control Systems

    From getting you to your favorite island, to getting man to the moon, flight control systems are vital to say the least. Flight control computing systems in a way run the world. Essentially they are used to keep an aircraft or projective on course. A computer gathers a bunch of data such as altitude, pitch, roll, yaw and velocity, then it compares the constant flood of data to a plotted course. If the aircraft or projectile is deviating to far from the chosen course then it will use the data to make self-corrections to bring it closer to the targeted path. 

    I was definitely expecting to get extremely good information from scholastic and primary sources, and I most certainly did. The scientific papers i found were really jam packed full of information. There were plenty of algorithms for processing data and basic fundamentals of flight control. I was very pleased to find this amount of information on this topic. What surprised me is the lack of secondary sources. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but it seems that there was hardly any relevant information that even made the news on flight control specifically. The most interesting thing pertaining to flight control involved Russian missile testing. I really was not expecting to be this underwhelmed with secondary source information on something like this. However, I guess the subject is kind of a snooze fest to most people. Oh well!

The moment I knew I would work for a space agency

Pillars of Creation,
Eagle Nebula

    

    

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”

                    ― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

   

    It is fair to say that not everyone knows exactly what they want to do for the rest of their life, just before they get out of high school. That certainly was the case for me at least. I had no idea what I really wanted to do with my finite amount of time on this planet. I knew that if I tried, I could learn how to do anything. I had this ability to learn. I always enjoyed engineering, however I also liked cooking. I got really good with 3D modeling, but then again, I always found cyber security fascinating. It took me several years after I left high school to set my eyes on a dream and really go for it. 

    So, now I am on a journey. It is very warming to know that there are still professors that truly do care about the success of their students and encouraging their students to work hard to achieve their goals. I am very proud to be a student again and learn from professors like Albert Wu. I hope there is a day that I am able to reflect on my adventure and thank all those whom believed in me. 

Now, allow me to take you on our vary own journey into the Cosmos.