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\h        MAY: I grew up in southern California at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

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\h        Then my father moved the family to Merritt Island when he went to work at

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\h        Kennedy Space Center working on the Apollo Program.

4
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\h        I think what mostly inspired me was when my dad would call home and

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\h        tell us about the rocket launches that were going off when I was small.

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\h        I remember running into the backyard and looking up the sky and

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\h        seeing these little contrails of smoke and fire going off

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\h        and being so excited that it was happening so close to our home.

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\h        I started working at Kennedy Space Center fresh out of high school as an 18-years-old,

10
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\h        wet behind the ears, tile technician on the space shuttle.

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\h        I started here in 1979 as one of the first tile technicians working on

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\h        Columbia prior to the first space shuttle flight.

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\h        Working in the Commercial Crew Program is a thrill for me.

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\h        I'm inspired to work with these people. We have people from multiple backgrounds, different programs.

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\h        And the technical skills that they bring, and it just amazes me.

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\h        We're working on the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability portion of our program.

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\h        This is where providers come to us with a integrated capability for a

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\h        transportation system being the spacecraft and the launch vehicle.

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\h        The launch vehicle being the booster portion of it.

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\h        I work with the Boeing team consisting of the CST-100 crew module and the Atlas V launch vehicles.

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\h        The second team is Sierra Nevada. They're proposing to fly the Dream Chaser,

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\h        a winged spacecraft on an Atlas V launch vehicle booster.

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\h        And the third team is SpaceX. They're proposing to fly a Dragon spacecraft on a Falcon 9 launch vehicle.

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\h        All three of these teams are competing. I know we're gonna get there and provide

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\h        this capability to get our crew to the space station and return them safely to the Earth.

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\h        I think when I witness the first commercial crew flight,

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\h        it's going to be awe-inspiring. It's gonna be the handing of the baton from

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\h        the government to industry to take on this responsibility,

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\h        similar to back in  the early days of airline traffic and commercial passenger flights from New York to LA.

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\h        Now instead of from New York to LA, you're going to be flying from the Earth's surface to the space station.

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\h        The Commercial Crew Program is a paradigm shift for NASA.

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\h        We're working with the industry partners to purchase a ride.

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\h         Which will allow us to have

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\h        the resources that we need to do those real difficult tasks we have envisioned for the future,

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\h        the asteroid mission and going to Mars and those kinds of things.

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\h        I think the opportunities for young kids nowadays, in regards of spaceflight, is endless.

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\h        When I was growing up, in order to be an astronaut, you had to be a fighter pilot,

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\h        you had to come out of the military, you had to have these special skills.