Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
My capacity here is really...really three things. One is I'm a scientist myself; I'm
involved with the science on the Mars Curiosity Rover, I was one of the founding fathers of
the mission. So I still like to do science; it's kind of why you get into the game. But
my job for NASA and for the Goddard Space Flight Center is to be a catalyst. And that
involves promoting science ideas, listening to my science colleagues -- there are a lot
of them and they're, you know, way smart -- putting together the pieces so they...they can get
the opportunities to do the new stuff they want to do. And so it's partly scientist,
partly politician, partly humanitarian, because they have ideas, some of which might take
longer to fulfill than others, um, so, it's even inspirational. We have so many young,
bright science stars who need that first break to get into something -- a new mission, a
new idea, a new competition. So because science itself, um, is inherently competitive -- I
mean, we talk about the Olympics in sports, well, to win some of the grants, the missions,
the contracts, that we use to allow us to do what we do, it's fiercely competitive.
And so, my job is to help make those competitions work out for our scientists so they can ask
the big questions, make the measurements to address them, and that's, I mean really, it's
a great job.