1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,010 Each February young scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center enroll in the Planetary Science Winter School. 2 00:00:04,030 --> 00:00:08,020 Together with a group of veteran engineers 3 00:00:08,040 --> 00:00:12,030 they have one week to work and submit the design 4 00:00:12,050 --> 00:00:16,050 of an instrument that can be proposed to fly in space. Mission proposals are not selected the first 5 00:00:16,070 --> 00:00:20,050 time around. It's a very competitive environment. 6 00:00:20,070 --> 00:00:24,060 Proposals are usually rejected when they fail to meet science, technical and cost requirements. 7 00:00:24,080 --> 00:00:28,070 A lesson that Brook Lakew, who has been on several successful flight missions learned on a personal level. I was 8 00:00:28,090 --> 00:00:32,080 designing an instrument, but the mission itself was deemed too expensive 9 00:00:32,100 --> 00:00:36,090 by NASA and was not selected. But that's the name of the 10 00:00:36,110 --> 00:00:40,100 game. Not every mission that you design flies. 11 00:00:40,120 --> 00:00:44,110 You submit several times and improve on it. And then someday you 12 00:00:44,130 --> 00:00:48,120 hope that you're going to be selected. In order to train young NASA scientists into mission creators, 13 00:00:48,140 --> 00:00:52,130 Dr. Lakew created the Planetary Winter School. 14 00:00:52,150 --> 00:00:56,140 In the Integrated Design Center they come with their abstract concept 15 00:00:56,160 --> 00:01:00,150 work with the engineers and then they face their reality if you will. 16 00:01:00,170 --> 00:01:04,160 As a young scientist, you're usually very 17 00:01:04,180 --> 00:01:08,180 focused on your science and analyzing data 18 00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:12,180 and hoping to participate in new missions. But, I think to be 19 00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:16,200 able to build your own instrument, your own mission, you really have to 20 00:01:16,220 --> 00:01:20,200 understand the engineering. The Integrated Design Center is where the 21 00:01:20,220 --> 00:01:24,220 magic happens. It's where they bring in all the different disciplines from 22 00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:28,230 communications and power and radiation and it allows us to get 23 00:01:28,250 --> 00:01:32,270 our feet wet in designing an instrument or a mission that could potentially 24 00:01:32,290 --> 00:01:36,280 be proposed to a real live NASA program one day. So if I'm going to 25 00:01:36,300 --> 00:01:40,300 be apart of a member of a large mission design, or going to be 26 00:01:40,320 --> 00:01:44,310 a PI not only should I be thinking about the science 27 00:01:44,330 --> 00:01:48,320 I should also be worrying about what the engineers can tell you. My job is 28 00:01:48,340 --> 00:01:52,330 naturally very collaborative. I work with a lot of scientists, but it's a very different way 29 00:01:52,350 --> 00:01:56,340 of thinking to go over to the engineers and talk with them. 30 00:01:56,360 --> 00:02:00,340 So one of the great things about the winter school is that we go from researchers 31 00:02:00,360 --> 00:02:04,350 to mission developers. We all learn about 32 00:02:04,370 --> 00:02:08,360 every element, from the budget to the mechanical, from the electrical and 33 00:02:08,380 --> 00:02:12,370 as scientists we typically don't have that choice. My role 34 00:02:12,390 --> 00:02:16,390 in the planetary science winter school is communications. I'm in charge of getting the data back 35 00:02:16,410 --> 00:02:20,410 from the instrument suite back home. Every time somebody made a change we had 36 00:02:20,430 --> 00:02:24,420 to figure out how long it was going to take to get things from the spacecraft back 37 00:02:24,440 --> 00:02:28,430 to Earth, how much time we had with the orbital parameters of 38 00:02:28,450 --> 00:02:32,440 the spacecraft and how much power that would take. So there we so many tradeoffs that 39 00:02:32,460 --> 00:02:36,450 every time any change was made, I had to recalculate all the numbers. 40 00:02:36,470 --> 00:02:40,460 When you're designing a mission or an instrument, it's all about trading off your science and 41 00:02:40,480 --> 00:02:44,470 the engineering. So you make sure you can keep the science you really want, 42 00:02:44,490 --> 00:02:48,480 maybe get a little bit of extra science that you'd like, but you've got to make it work. 43 00:02:48,500 --> 00:02:52,490 My vision is that the Planetary Winter 44 00:02:52,510 --> 00:02:56,510 School becomes the premiere program for training NASA 45 00:02:56,530 --> 00:03:00,520 earlier career scientists. It's a real investment in 46 00:03:00,540 --> 00:03:04,520 people and that's the most important one in my view. 47 00:03:04,540 --> 00:03:08,540 Goddard's postdoctoral planetary scientists are enrolling now for the 2016-2017 Planetary Science Winter School. 48 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:12,550 This program is supported by NASA Goddard's New Business Office 49 00:03:12,570 --> 00:03:28,355 Chief Technologist's Office and Integrated Design Center.