Meet: Keith Zimmerman

Who I am and what I do:
I have wanted to be a part of NASA since I was in the 5th grade, either as an astronaut or a flight director. I had the space bug early on, and I always wanted to work in the space program. So when my parents moved to this area, it was like a dream come true for me. I now work at the Johnson Space Center as an operations lead in the International Liaison Office, though I spend a lot of time in Russia. There are six people who work in this capacity, and we all take turns leading the operations team for NASA at Russia's Mission Control Center, in Moscow.

My job involves acting as consultant, coordinator, liaison and system integration specialist between the United States and Russia. My position was created as part of the Phase I Program after Norm Thagard's flight to the Mir Space Station, and we began as more of a science team, as NASA's consultant group in Moscow. Originally, this group was formed to coordinate all American experiments performed on the Mir by American astronauts. Eventually, we had to begin learning more about the systems, because system failures on the Mir would definitely affect the science. I worked as a co-lead on John Blaha's mission, and I was the overall team lead on Mike Foale's mission.

Phase II involves the International Space Station. Though there will not be a lot of science experiments done in the beginning, we will provide 24-hour support from Moscow. Three Operations Leads will work nine-hour shifts each. The person who's on the longest tour of duty will usually be the team lead. We will lead a team of MOD (Mission Operations Directorate) systems, flight controllers and other specialists. As the team of systems specialists, our job has two main parts. The first is to know the U.S. side of the International Space Station, and to educate the Russians about our systems and operations on ISS. The second part is to learn as much as possible about the Russian side of the space station and give that information to the people in the U.S. We act as liaisons for technical information.

Though I am not fluent in Russian, I manage well enough, and we have interpreters available for all technical discussions. In Russia, trust and relationships are built with people, not organizations. Currently, two to three people from our group are in Moscow at any given time, but once the FGB launches in November there will be five of us there.

Likes/Dislikes about job:
I love my job, and what I like best is the foreign travel and the fact that when I'm in Russia, I have a lot of autonomy and independence, especially with the nine hour time difference. What I like least is all the meetings we attend here in the United States.

My Career Journey
I attended Texas A&M University, and earned my Bachelor of Science degree (with honors) in aerospace engineering. While in college, I worked as a co-op at NASA. I started in the shuttle program as a flight controller in the pointing office. We were called "pointers". Pointers determine the rotational orientation of the shuttle. I worked four missions -- two as a co-op and two after graduation, as a pointer.

At the end of 1989, NASA was starting to staff up operations for what was then Space Station Freedom, so I was transferred to work in the Space Station Operations Division as a pointer. This ended up being a wonderful career move, though at first I wasn't real excited about the move. For the first five years it was more of a desk job with no simulations. Among other things, I also did planning and timelines for missions.

At the end of 1994, the Phase I program needed a small team of engineers to begin learning about the Russian space station systems. This resulted in the MEAT Team (Mir Extension Assessment Team). NASA had a maintenance contract for the Mir -- helping to purchase spare parts to keep Mir running. Our team monitored this contract and learned everything we could about the Russian space station Mir. This began with Norm Thagard's mission. One of the things I did to prepare for working with the Russians was to take culture and language classes for two years, one hour everyday. In the summer of 1995, I was chosen as an operations lead. For four months in 1996, I attended intensive language school, where my job was to learn the Russian language.

Growing Up
I grew up in Edgewater Park, New Jersey, until I was 12. Then we moved to the Clear Lake area in 1980, when I was in the 8th grade. My dad works at a chemical company on the Houston ship channel, and his promotion brought us here. Clear Lake was a great place to grow up, but I did miss the snow. I loved to read, especially science fiction, fantasy and mysteries. I read all the Hardy Boys books. In high school, I read a lot about World War II. I still love to read, and enjoy all of Tom Clancy's books. I am a voracious reader, and read about a 100 pages an hour. I played the clarinet in the school band all through high school, and I also played piano on the side.

Something I will always remember was a field trip we took right after the movie "Rocky" came out. A famous scene from that movie was when Rocky runs up the stairs at a museum. That's where we went on our field trip -- to that same museum -- and all of us kids ran up the stairs too. We thought it was so cool. This event didn't shape my life much, but it was a memorable event just the same.

Influences
I was in the Academically Talented Program taught by Mr. Sherman, at Magowan Middle School, from 3rd to 7th grade. Mr. Sherman and his classes were quite an influence on me. I loved this class, doing advanced reading, math and science. We did some really neat projects, including re-designing the city we lived in to make it environmentally conscious. We built a model map and designed a monorail system (non-polluting solar-powered vehicle) doing away with all cars and trucks.

Right around this same time, Disney was in the process of developing Epcot Center, and asked for input from schools all over the country. Disney ended up using the monorail system for Epcot. Whether they took the idea from us or not, it was exciting to know they used an idea we had. The next year, we designed an entire island that was to be self-sufficient for 10 years.

Another person who influenced me was my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Parks. She was the first person to really introduce me to Russia, and I found it fascinating. She had visited the country on summer vacation and shared some of her experiences with our class.

My Family
My parents still live in Clear Lake, which is also where my brother and I both live. My family enjoys skiing together. We love to go out and eat dinner together, and growing up we went out once a month. We started doing this again here recently. We really enjoy this time together. My brother and I went to Texas A&M University, so we really like to attend the A&M football games.

I love to downhill ski. It has been my favorite sport since I was 12 years old. I am a member of the local ski club, and try to get to Colorado, to ski, a couple times a year, if possible. I also like to play racquetball. I love exotic foods and anything gourmet -- I'll try anything once, which comes in handy in Moscow. I am a gourmet cook. I love traveling all over the world, and seem to pick up enough of other languages to manage wherever I am.

Goals
I want to keep doing what I am doing for awhile. I would also love to work a Mars mission as a flight controller. I've been working on my master's degree in space science at the University of Houston - Clear Lake. I need three more classes, and I will be finished. In the fall, I go back to Russia so I'm hoping next spring I can take at least two more classes. The last couple of years I have traveled so much it's been impossible to work on my education, but it's in my future.

Archived Chats

• August 21 , 2001
• February 25, 2000
  
• March 3, 1998