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in recognition of african-american

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history month

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nasa salutes the contributions of

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african americans to the cause of space

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exploration

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my name is april erickson and i am an

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instrument manager

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my formal title is a deputy instrument

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manager for the icesat

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atlas instrument it has

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two lasers there for redundancy meaning

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that if one fails you have a backup

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but it provides a laser beam that

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passes down to the ground through

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various optics

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to the ground and bounces back up off

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the surface of the polar ice

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and very closely you're able to look at

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that

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down to the ground and back up and then

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you can tell as you

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pass back over how much it's changed

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in that short duration as an instrument

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manager i have

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many responsibilities and it's mainly to

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manage

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resources and resources are many things

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people don't often think of people as

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resources it's helping the product

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delivery leads which are the people

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the engineers primarily who build the

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hardware helping them to be able to

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deliver their hardware on time

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and then there's the budget so you have

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a plan that you try to maintain and

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keep in line with and while you're doing

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that you try to

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keep things on track and on schedule so

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you're budgeting

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your financial budget as well as a time

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budget or plan but primarily it's a job

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of communication

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the exciting part is one the science

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that the opportunity to unders

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understand something like global warming

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if ice changes

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that has the it has an impact

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to vegetation it has an impact to

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sea levels rising which could either

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change either having droughts or

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flooding

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education is a passion for me but i

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really think it's important to

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keep up sort of the cadre of junior

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junior people coming up behind us to

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continue to fill the ranks for americans

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and to

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help us to remain prominent in delivery

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of science and technology

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i always say shoot for the moon and even

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if you miss you'll still be amongst the

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stars

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and of course some people be really

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literal and say well you might be very

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far away from the stars

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but realistically what i'm saying is

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shoot for high things and high goals and

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you may not always achieve exactly what

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you want but you'll achieve