1
00:00:12,030 --> 00:00:13,219
My name is Wensheng Huang.

2
00:00:13,219 --> 00:00:17,080
I’m a propulsion engineer, and I work at
the NASA Glenn Research Center.

3
00:00:17,080 --> 00:00:20,330
Being a propulsion researcher means basically
a rocket scientist.

4
00:00:20,330 --> 00:00:24,400
What I do is I research different ways to
move stuff around in space.

5
00:00:24,400 --> 00:00:28,540
The way an electrical rocket works is by creating
something called a plasma, which is the fourth

6
00:00:28,540 --> 00:00:29,980
state of matter.

7
00:00:29,980 --> 00:00:33,840
Basically what happens is you rip an electron
off of a neutral atom to create ions, which

8
00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:35,640
can be electrically accelerated.

9
00:00:35,640 --> 00:00:39,080
Now thanks to Newton’s third law, whenever
you accelerate something out the back, you

10
00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:41,020
move the spacecraft forward.

11
00:00:41,020 --> 00:00:47,010
Diversity is important to my work because
I’m a scientist and in order to come up

12
00:00:47,010 --> 00:00:49,820
with the best solution, we need to have a
lot of different ideas.

13
00:00:49,820 --> 00:00:53,589
If you only have one person working it, you’re
only gonna have one perspective and one set

14
00:00:53,589 --> 00:00:57,609
of ideas, but if you have ten people that’s
ten sets of ideas to pick from, and so the

15
00:00:57,609 --> 00:01:01,489
more diversity that we have, the better the
solution’s going to be for a particular

16
00:01:01,489 --> 00:01:02,489
problem.

17
00:01:02,489 --> 00:01:07,950
I’ve done a number of events involving kids,
including the Young Astronaut Day, Take Your

18
00:01:07,950 --> 00:01:12,200
Child to Work Day, Science and Math Week at
Cedar Point.

19
00:01:12,200 --> 00:01:17,070
I mean I was inspired, in part, by the people
around me when I was growing up, and I wanted

20
00:01:17,070 --> 00:01:20,729
to be on the other end—giving back to kids.

21
00:01:20,729 --> 00:01:26,480
The Asian Pacific heritage month means two
things to me.

22
00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:30,750
First is the Cleveland Asian Festival, which
always happens around the middle of May, and

23
00:01:30,750 --> 00:01:34,140
the other is the heritage event held by Glenn
Research Center.

24
00:01:34,140 --> 00:01:39,090
To me, this is a time to celebrate the uniqueness
of Asian culture.

25
00:01:39,090 --> 00:01:44,479
I’ve done a number of things, including
staffing the NASA booth to dragon dancing

26
00:01:44,479 --> 00:01:46,270
as a part of the local dragon dance team.

27
00:01:46,270 --> 00:01:48,380
That’s a really fun thing to do.

28
00:01:48,380 --> 00:01:53,570
My advice to young students would be to keep
dreaming big because even though at first

29
00:01:53,570 --> 00:01:56,049
your dreams may seem like impossible.