Meet: Michael P. Moses

Who I Am and What I Do

I am 31 years old and have been working at NASA for about four years. My job at Johnson Space Center is as a Flight Control Officer in the Mission Control Center. We monitor data from the space shuttle during missions to make sure all of our systems are operating as planned. When there isn't a shuttle in orbit, we practice in simulations that train us how to handle failures. It is a very demanding, exciting job that is also a whole lot of fun. My section, Propulsion Systems, is in charge of the Orbital Maneuvering System (OMS) and the Reaction Control System (RCS). These are the two propulsion systems on-board the shuttle that allow it to maintain and change orbits, including executing the deorbit burn to return the shuttle to the Earth.

My Career Journey

After high school, I attended Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, for four years and got a bachelor's degree in physics. I then moved to Melbourne, Florida, for two years to get my master's degree in astrophysics from Florida Institute of Technology. I then returned to Purdue for four more years to get a second master's degree, this time in aerospace engineering. That's a whole lot of college! When I first started, I wanted to work in astronomy. But in Florida, I got interested in rocket propulsion. So I decided to go back to school and learn some more.

Personal Information

I grew up near Rockwood, Pennsylvania, a small rural town about 90 miles from Pittsburgh. I currently live in the Clear Lake area of Houston, Texas. It is much flatter and much warmer here than where I grew up. (You can wear shorts on Christmas day!) I have also lived in Indiana and Florida.

My high school was way out in the country. Almost everyone I knew lived on a farm. My uncle had a sheep farm and I used to work there every summer. While in school, I was very active in the Future Farmers of America. I wanted to be a veterinarian. Or an astronaut. I never could make up my mind. I really enjoyed my science classes so that's why I decided to study physics in college.

My parents got divorced when I was 20. My mom has recently retired from the pet shop business and lives in Bedford, Pennsylvania. My dad has remarried and still lives near my hometown of Rockwood, Pennsylvania. My sister (Molly Morgan) lives near Washington, DC, and works for the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab. She and her husband (Chad) have just had a baby boy (Jacob Thomas Morgan). I'm pretty excited to be an uncle. Unfortunately it's a long trip from Houston, but I try to visit several times a year.

I am married to Natalie Beth Stubbings. She is from Chicago, Illinois, and also works at NASA. She works in the EVA Project Office, and is very busy these days due to all the spacewalks required to assemble the International Space Station. We don't yet have children but plan to in the future. We have a cat, Baxter, who loves to sleep in the warm Texas sun all day.

About Myself

For fun I like to play roller-hockey (because there isn't any ice in Texas) and go mountain biking (there aren't any mountains in Houston - just a few hills). I also read a lot of books, mess around with my home computer, and work on remodeling the house. The house remodeling is taking a lot of time and work, but Beth and I have a good time working on it together.