why I work at NASA
It happened in the San Jose Airport.
I had arrived a few hours early, a victim of my desire to carpool and to save a few bucks on transportation. Somewhere between the Burger King hash browns and Starbucks hot chocolate, everything made sense.
I was beginning my trip back to the East Coast after spending the week at the Next Generation Exploration Conference at Ames Research Center. I was on the verge of finishing “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini. I was in pain, and – not to give anything away here – my heart was breaking over the story of a world gone wrong but where yet somehow, love and courage persisted amongst the ruin and the lives destroyed in terrible, excruciating ways. It was all I could do to hide my tears from my fellow airport patrons.
It was in this moment that I understood, that I remembered who I am. I work at NASA as an employee of the federal government. I’m not in this business to make money. I don’t work for the federal government for the job security or the employee benefits. Yes, I enjoy my job – heck, I spend my days figuring out how to send a spacecraft to the moon. That’s awesome. But it isn’t the real reason that I work at NASA. I work at NASA and for the federal government because it is how I am called to reach out to the world. In a world filled with war and hunger and senseless violence, we are a voice of hope, a moment of inspiration, something to light the way to a transformed life. We must believe that we can look beyond the day to day struggles, hoping that there is a better way of living just around the corner. In the 1960s we were called on to lead the world towards freedom and democracy. Today we are called on again, this time to demonstrate that the world yearns for even more – the hope and inspiration that we can provide through such a noble and challenging task as the quest for knowledge and exploration.
This is the challenge that has been put before us: to lead in the pursuit of knowledge. We can all join together in this peaceful journey of exploration, showing that life is about more than bombs and empty plates and handguns. All mankind can reach out to the stars together, one little step in the quest to make this world a better place to live for all of us. Civilization needs us to demonstrate the courage that it takes to pursue a better life, to believe that we can all be something more.
That is why I work at NASA.
Alan Steinberg on February 24th, 2008
Ha … that why I need to be working at NASA!
Gordon R. Vaughan on February 28th, 2008
Good post. I remember one of the managers there remarking lightheartedly about how working for the govt. meant the job certainly wasn’t about the big bucks, rather, NASA employees were in it “for the glory”.
He meant of course the opportunity to be part of a team working on innovative projects that would change the course of history.
Yeah, at least in some sense NASA is/ought to be “a voice of hope, a moment of inspiration, something to light the way to a transformed life.”
I’d also suggest that when you guys regain a crystal-clear sense of how what you’re working on can change the course of history, NASA will again become a lot more effective at fulfilling its mission.
dsantiago on February 28th, 2008
Wow, so well put! Thank you for so eloquently putting this done in words.
Gordon R. Vaughan on February 28th, 2008
Oh – that happened at JSC, not Ames, but I suppose it could apply anywhere at NASA.
ldelheimer on March 5th, 2008
Beautifully said. There’s no way you do it for the money. It’s for the future. I couldn’t have said it better myself. You need to find a press release writing assignment for them – you would say it far better than they could. I certainly hope to see more people like you writing for NASA in the near future – we need you.
RHPowell on March 9th, 2008
This post makes me smile. It also helped me realize why I work for NASA, why I love working for NASA, and how my life is really shaped by NASA.
As a fellow Gen-Y’er… well said.