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If an astronaut has to say "Houston, we have a problem," Holly Ridings will be at the other end of the call.
When humans are in space, NASA's flight director at Mission Control in Houston, Texas, directs the show. And for the first time in NASA's 60-year history, this flight director is a woman.
Ridings has worked in the field of manned space flights at NASA since 1998. She will now be responsible for the hundreds of flight controllers who monitor the International Space Station (ISS) crew every day and thousands of participants in launches or sorties. space. . Next year, his team will oversee the first astronauts from US soil since 2011, flying for the first time in commercial vehicles operated by SpaceX and Boeing. They will also work on NASA's exploration missions around the moon Orion a spacecraft, scheduled for 2022, which will be the first human space flight in the United States since 1972.
Quartz spoke to Ridings about his career and aspirations as an orchestrator of human activity in orbit.
Quartz: What makes a good flight director?
constituencies: Engineers, some of them do not like talking to people. You can already say that I do not mind. It's a mix of engineering and the human aspect, and that's really what operations are. You must have incredible technical skills, but it's about building relationships and solving problems with the team.
The very first flight director, Chris Kraft, is 94, I think, [and] still lives in the Clearlake area. I had lunch with him … just to ask for advice. You can follow the 98 flight directors to number one. He will tell you stories about Apollo 8 and the moon tour. It puts into perspective the commercial crew program; there are a lot of similarities to what Boeing and SpaceX are doing.
What advice did he give?
"There is more than one way to get to Spring, Texas. [a town outside of Houston]. "The question I asked was about leading people. The board really wanted to say, "You have great people, let them run, let them make decisions, let them be invested." There is not just one way to get your goals, it's not is not always the case. When you manage an elite team, you absolutely need their abilities and commitment.
Did you have mentors at NASA?
When I went to university [at Texas A&M], my main design professor was Aaron Cohen and previously he was director of the Johnson Space Center. He was amazing, he asked us to design a lunar base and he took the phone and called 22 people who were working on lunar objects. You realize that these people were there and that they would talk to you. This has taught me to break through these hierarchical barriers … .I have been working at [NASA’s Goddard Space Center] for a little while with Gerald Soffen, a project scientist for the viking landers in the late 1970s. My flight director's name is actually "Viking Flight" in honor of him.
Do you have a favorite mission you worked on as a flight director?
I had the privilege of being the NASA Flight Director for the very first time. [SpaceX] Dragon who went to the International Space Station in 2012. When I started [working] with SpaceX, three years ago, they really managed to build those relationships and trust all along this very very technical and complicated mission, and to see the world through their eyes … and what they try to accomplish. It was the very first time [NASA] had already piloted a utility vehicle. If you look at it from the point of view of the industry and we do not have that mission, are we where we are today?
What kind of stamp do you want to put in your flight director duties?
NASA is the only one [US] team that has never put humans in the space. We own the monopoly. Soon, next year we will have our commercial suppliers; they will execute the human launches themselves. [My goal] is to maintain NASA's leadership and maintain our relevance and to be able to work positively in a sector that is evolving very, very quickly and is still considered the specialist of our expertise. We do that with ISS today, and if I put a stamp on it, it really ties all the different elements of the human spaceflight ecosystem together and we'll see how we all work together.
What does it mean to be the first female flight director for you?
I had an incredible chance – I talked about my mentors [previously in the interview], my parents, my teachers, I have never had personal limitations. I know it's important to have models, like me, that do not impose any limits. And then it works a little as you hope. To be the first of something is an honor; for NASA to give me this opportunity, at the moment in the field of manned flights, it is only a privilege.
When did you know that you wanted to be involved in space?
I've enjoyed space since I was young, I'm one of the people we call "theChallenger generation. I was in sixth grade when the Challenger [disaster] arrived, we watched it live. It's interesting that some people react to that: "Yeah, I do not want to have anything to do with it. problem that I do not think I can do better.
This interview has been modified and condensed.
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