“I recommend this to folks who are passionate and interested about working in this field to look at the programs and the Pathways Intern Program,” Dave said, pointing those interested to apply at. That was the path Dave followed, and he recommends the same to others seeking to work at NASA as well. “It allows you to get some real time experience doing the job, doing different things, rotating around the center, between different centers, and learning about how we do work here at NASA.”įollowing the internship, interns are given the opportunity to be converted to full-time employees.

“In school, I had the opportunity to do the Pathways Intern Program, which is a rotational internship program with NASA and many other federal agencies where you rotate one semester working at NASA, then go back to school for a semester,” Dave said. He interned with NASA to help further achieve his goal. While studying at Purdue, Dave got his start working toward becoming a flight director. After attending Purdue University, he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering.

“That definitely sent me down the path of wanting to work here at the Johnson Space Center in human spaceflight operations.”įollowing high school, Dave continued to pursue his passion for space, which entailed becoming a flight director for NASA. “He was the first flight director and the person who really set up human spaceflight operations how we do it today, and obviously through the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s and through all those formative missions,” Dave said. But while I was in high school, I stumbled on a book called ‘Flight: My Life in Mission Control,’ which was written by Christopher Kraft.”ĭave was inspired by Kraft, who was the first flight director at NASA ever and played a defining role in the history of space flight. “I didn’t know exactly what that would be growing up. “Working in spaceflight and for NASA was definitely something I’ve always wanted to do,” Dave said. While at Secaucus High School, he discovered the story of what would become his role model. Webb is considered the successor to the highly successful, but aging Hubble Space Telescope.Growing up in the small ex-urb at the border of Hudson County and Bergen County, Dave longed to be involved with space missions. Then the lengthy process began to align the mirrors, get the infrared detectors cold enough to operate and calibrate the science instruments, all protected by a sunshade the size of a tennis court that keeps the telescope cool.

It reached its lookout point 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth in January. The world’s biggest and most powerful space telescope rocketed away last December from French Guiana in South America. The images were released one-by-one at an event at NASA’s Goddard Space Center that included cheerleaders with pompoms the color of the telescope’s golden mirrors. The telescope is designed to peer back so far that scientists can get a glimpse of the dawn of the universe about 13.7 billion years ago and zoom in on closer cosmic objects, even our own solar system, with sharper focus. This image provided by NASA on Monday shows galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.

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