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My first summer internship at Kennedy Space\h
Center, I got to see one of the shuttle launches,\h\h

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and that first shuttle launch and watching\h
that spacecraft go into the air and\h\h

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hearing the noise and watching\h
the alligators jump out of the\h\h

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water because it was so noisy\h
for them was just so inspiring.

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How did Earth become what it is today, and is\h
it really special? Why do we exist here today?\h\h

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These are the types of questions that\h
made me the scientist that I am now.

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Hi, I’m Jim Green, NASA'S Chief Scientist,\h
and this is Gravity Assist podcast.

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In this season of Gravity Assist,\h
we're going to go behind the scenes\h\h

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at NASA and we're going to hear from the\h
scientists engineers and others that work\h\h

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so hard to make these amazing space missions\hhappen.

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And I always like to ask my guests  to tell me what that person, place or thing

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or event that happened to them that got them so\hexcited

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about being the space professional they\h
are today. I call that their gravity assist.

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When I was about seven, I was riding in the\h
family car with my father. And on the radio,\h\h

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we heard about John Glenn orbiting the Earth. And\h
I remember asking my Dad, what's that mean? And\h\h

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and he explained it to me. And I thought, I want\h
to do that. I want to be an astronaut someday.

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There was in the course catalog, “Ices\h
and Oceans in the Outer Solar System”\h\h

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taught by Carl Sagan, where I first learned\h
about Europa and about Titan and Triton.

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If there was a sort of pivotal gravity assist for me,\h\h

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it was in my senior year when\h
I took my first geology course.

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I'm a farm boy from Southern Indiana.\h
So we had dark skies on that farm.\h\h

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And all you had to do is look up\h
and see all those stars and wonder.

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I would say that my gravity assists are not\h
engineer or scientists but actually my parents.

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So i would say that's the gravity\h
assist in my life getting to NASA,\h\h

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is the people who loved and\h
supported me through the years.

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What was your gravity assist? Tell us on\h
social media using the hashtag gravityassist\h\h