SHARON COOPER

I started working at GSFC in 1983, when I was 19, after only one year of college. At the time I was going to a Liberal Arts college, and although I knew I wanted to do something in the math/science arena, I had no clue what my major was going to be. I had hated science in grade school, but an awesome Physics teacher my Junior year of High School really got me interested in the laws of the natural world. So, when I needed a summer job, my dad suggested that I apply at Goddard - after all, where better to learn about our world than at NASA? I thought he was crazy, but applied anyway, and got accepted as a Summer Student into the Materials Branch! By the end of that first summer, I was operating a Scanning Electron Microscope, which is a big microscope that allows you to view things at hundreds of times magnification, and also has equipment to do analysis to find out the elemental composition of things. That was it - the world of Science and Engineering was for me! After working for two years as a Summer Student, and after graduating with a 2-year Liberal Arts degree (emphasizing math and science), it was time to get serious. I was interested in a degree in Materials Engineering, but at the time the University of Maryland was just beginning to develop its Materials Department, so I chose Mechanical Engineering instead. I joined the Cooperative Education ("Co-op") program, which allowed me to work at Goddard on and off during my schooling, and also guaranteed me a position at Goddard after graduation. In 1987 when I graduated, I was offered a position in the Mechanical Engineering Branch, which I readily accepted. Nine years later, I am still here.

The job I do today is that of a mechanical systems engineer. I am currently working on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), which is an 8000 lb. satellite that will launch in less than one year from now (Nov. 1997) to study tropical weather patterns, in order to understand how they dictate weather over the rest of the world. Scientists hope to use this information to predict natural disasters (such as floods and droughts). I am not really involved with the science, however. Since 1992 I have been working on the Structures subsystem - basically, the mechanical "chassis" of the satellite, to which all of the instruments and electronic boxes and harnesses are bolted. I guess you could say we are the "bones" of the spacecraft "body". Initially, I was involved with designing the structure, and that included working with many other people to make sure our "bones" were strong enough to support all of the weight from the instruments and electronics, and also making sure the instruments and sensors were all able to look at the things they wanted to, simultaneously (yes, a satellite has eyes in the back of its head - and lots of other places, too!). I also worked with the launch vehicle people, who had to tell us what kind of environment (noise (or acoustics), vibrations, temperature, etc) our satellite would see during its ride on the rocket. Then we had to make sure the structure was strong enough to withstand those loads, and also make sure all of the instruments and boxes could withstand the loads they would see! Finally, when the design and analysis was completed, we worked with our fabrication shop to get the parts made, and meanwhile made plans and wrote procedures to put it all together (assemble).

After the structure was assembled, but before we started to install the electronics and instruments, we put the spacecraft through a series of mechanical tests, to make sure that the structure we built was actually as strong as the structure we designed on paper. This was an exciting series of tests, because we installed "dummy" masses all over the structure, to simulate the boxes and instruments which were missing, and then put the whole spacecraft onto a huge centrifuge, which spun the 8000 pound, 15 foot-tall spacecraft around at 30 rpm, pulling g-forces of up to 7 g's. After making it through this, and other tests, we started the Rintegration and test' phase, during which we installed all of the electronics and science instruments onto the structure, and the electrical people hooked up all the wires and then ran lots of tests to make sure everything was working properly. This part of the program took about 18 months. Currently, we are about to put the fully integrated spacecraft, now called the Observatory since all of the science instruments are installed, through a final set of testing, to make sure that it will survive the trip to space on the rocket. We will vibrate it (to simulate the bumpy ride on the rocket), put it in a room and blow loud horns at it (to simulate the noise the rocket makes), and put it through electrical testing at very hot and cold temperatures, at a vacuum, to make sure it will operate once in orbit.

The final phase of this job will be to travel to the Launch Site (in this case Tanegashima Space Center in Japan!) to perform last minute configuration changes, and to assist the rocket people with installing TRMM onto the H-II Launch Vehicle. Then I get to sit back and watch while Rmy babyS of the last five years blasts into space! Let me tell you, that makes a lot of long, hard years really worth while. TRMM will be the second satellite launched that I have helped build - itUs a really exciting, proud moment.

Outside of work, I also keep pretty busy. I got married almost one year ago, which is a wonderful thing, and my husband, John, and I spend a lot of time "upgrading" our 40 year old house. I am an avid gardener (flowers mostly), take jazz dance classes and ballroom dance classes once a week, ride my horse, and go flying with my husband (a private pilot). We both have champion show dogs, and I have just finished breeding mine, so now we are gearing up for puppies in March! Both of our families are fairly local, so we spend time with them sometimes, and enjoy going out to dinner or movies or dancing once in a while. But sometimes our favorite thing to do is take time out and sit and watch TV by the fire!

My advice to all you young women out there is, have confidence in yourself, and don't let ANYBODY tell you that you "can't do!. Women have a great deal to offer in a technical world, and are an extremely beneficial asset to any team. It took me a while to gain that confidence in the working world, and even in school - but once you really listen, you'll find that if you don't ask the question because it's "dumb", somebody else (probably a man!) will ask it, and people will say, "oh, good question". No question is dumb, as one of my professors used to say. Don't be overly sensitive and overly "feminist" - just be yourself (a woman!), be competent, be courteous, be professional, but keep your sense of humor, and most people won't get hung up on your gender. A great example of this is my experience dealing with the Japanese during my work on TRMM. The Japanese provided the primary instrument on TRMM, as well as the launch vehicle (rocket), so I had a LOT of interfacing to do with them. It is VERY much against Japanese tradition to be a technical women - in fact I have been told by some of the Japanese engineers that there may be 5 or 6 technical women in a company of 5000!! So when I first started working with them, they didn't quite know what to do - they were very uncomfortable (although always polite), and the fact that I'm 6 feet tall didn't help much! But after only two or three encounters, and after receiving heaps of well organized, timely, and concise information from me, I think they all forgot that I was a woman, and just treated my like an engineer. I think the experience was good for all of us.

Good luck to you all. Keep your heads up. You'll all be great engineers and scientists!!