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(music)

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(Jackie:) There was a scene at the very end, where there's two arm wrestlers struggling

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with everything they have. The camera focuses in on his face,

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and as he was sitting there, in slow motion struggling with everything he had,

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I had the epiphany that I had never worked that hard, even for a moment. And I

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decided right then and there that I was going to go back to college, I was going

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to pick the hardest major that I had enjoyed, and I was going to give it

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everything I had. A traditional definition of what an instrument manager

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does is to make sure that the instrument does what it says it's going to do. So we

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meet our technical requirements. That it's delivered on schedule and

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within costs. And I think the most powerful tool in an engineer's toolbox is the

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ability to break really complex problems down into smaller and smaller pieces

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until it's down to a piece that one person can manage in a day or in an hour.

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One of the pieces that it's divided down into is the Wide Field Camera 3.  I divide

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that down into small pieces. I need an electrical engineer to make sure that

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all the circuitry works and that all the power goes to the right places.

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I need a mechanical engineer who is going to build the structure that holds

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all of this stuff. I need an optics engineer. We need detectors. And my job is

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really to break that down. You know, what does it mean to build a thousand

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pounds of hardware that's going to do this great science?

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(Astronaut:) "Hey, Megan, let's stop here and get down about six or eight inches--"

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(Jackie:) I got the kinds of jobs you can get without a college education and without and motivation and

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being a young kid.  I needed to work on something that

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mattered to me. That I needed to feel a personal connection with making an

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investment in the future, in humanity's future, my future.

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I found out that when it matters to me and when I feel like I'm being a

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part of something bigger than myself, and I'm willing to try as hard as

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I can, nothing can stand in my way.  No matter

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what it is that you're facing in your life, the piece that is standing between

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you and your dream is you.  And that anybody can make a choice in their life

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to go after what matters to them to get the skills that they need to go after

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what matters to them. And they can get there because if I'm here, believe me, you

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can get to where you want to go.

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(music)