Tyler Porter at Jacobs Sverdrup in Houston

  Tyler Porter is a mechanical engineering major who graduated from Scott County HS and transferred hours to UK from Georgetown College . He is pictured in Washington , D.C. for the May 14-17, '07 briefing to Congress by the Citizens for Space Exploration, a grassroots organization with the mission to promote awareness of the benefits of human space exploration and support for NASA and the Vision for Space Exploration. You can find details about this meeting on the internet, if your "Google" skills are good. The meeting occurred at the end of Tyler's first work experience with Jacobs Technology in Houston . Tyler was one of two engineering co-ops to make reports to Congress. Recruitment by NASA and its contractors can be a last minute, nerve wracking experience. I asked Tyler to report back home on this topic last spring when other students were having "NASA nerves"

Here is his response:

"The epic journey to get here ( Houston ) a.k.a. my last minute story:

I began trying for a co-op in the late fall of my sophomore year, hoping for summer '06. I applied only to NASA facilities like Johnson Space Center , Kennedy Space Center , and Ames, but didn't hear anything from them. As I was told, it's hard to land a first tour in the summer. So with summer gone, I turned my attention to trying for the fall semester (fall '06). I didn't hear from anyone for a long time as there was a hiring hold at NASA at the time. Finally, I got a phone interview with a team at Kennedy Space Center . It lasted for about 30-40 minutes and we covered topics such as my history, my interests, why I wanted to work with them, job details, and light conversation about whatever we were led to from the questions. It was with a committee of people including human resources and engineers. I sent the team leader a thank you e-mail for his time and waited to hear back. The UK co-op office had to call NASA's co-op coordinator to find out the position had been filled.

Spring '07 was my last window for a full three-tour co-op. This time I applied to NASA facilities and to NASA contractors. I never did hear from Kennedy again, though I did hear from Johnson Space Center this time in the form of a rejection letter in October or so. I still keep it as a reminder to keep trying as hard as I can at all I do. But then in November I got an e-mail from Jacobs Technology at the Johnson Space Center - another interview over the phone. We covered topics very similar to the KSC one, about 40 minutes or so. My HR contact said she'd get back to me in a couple weeks. That was late November, but this time I heard back and the answer was "yes".

The job: The job is pretty cool. I work both offsite in the Jacobs building on computer related stuff and paperwork (you can't change a bolt on flight hardware without documenting it) and I go onsite to the space center to a lab to work on the test model of the new coolant system for the Constellation Program CEV (the spacecraft that will replace the shuttle) as well as another lab to support the MELFI, which is sort of a high-tech extremely cold freezer that keeps experiments on the International Space Station from changing after completion while they wait to return to Earth. We have to constantly make sure it is running correctly up there, so sometimes I get to head into Mission Control for that. When there isn't a test or experiment being run in one of those two labs, I'm usually at the Jacobs building working on the MELFI database or whatever odd jobs a project engineer needs done. Earlier in the semester I built from scratch a program for pulling info from the database to replace the old one. If you can find ways to make things run more smoothly, you can really make a difference that they notice. They like this new one much better. Being an ME, it isn't really my field, but it was a unique experience to create a program with my own systems and techniques.

The other cool part of being a co-op here are the lectures and tours. If you are interested in the astronaut corps, then this is the place to be. The Johnson Space Center serves three roles: Mission Control, a development/research/manufacture facility for flight hardware, and the astronaut training center. As co-ops, we get to go to lectures given by astronauts, flight directors, and scientists. A lecture coming up will be by Gene Kranz, flight director during the Apollo 13 disaster, and we've heard from several interesting astronauts about being up there, directors on how to become an astronaut, and engineers on new technologies like the CEV. We have tours as well including those of Mission Control, the Shuttle simulator, the vacuum chamber building (it's huge!). Today we went to the advanced propulsion lab and saw them fire an experimental magnetoplasma engine and the neutral buoyancy lab where astronauts were training in a 40 foot deep two hundred foot long pool. Coming up is a tour of the moonrock/Stardust lab. We usually have on average one lecture or one tour a week, though sometimes two and I think once there were three in one week. You also get NASA benefits like free access to Space Center Houston (the tourist accessible part of the facility) and free gym facilities including a weight/cardio workout room, basketball facility, and outdoor baseball field, football field, and outdoor track.

Finally, there is the social dimension. Besides working with your project team, you get to know the other co-ops in your company quickly, as Jacobs has rented a bunch of apartments in the same complex which we stay in together for free. Jacobs has 18 co-ops from a variety of schools, which is more than any other contractor at JSC and I consider most if not all of them good friends. We grill out, see movies, play video games, chill, etc. together when we are off work. We are also in close contact with the NASA co-ops who number about 60 or so. There are intramural sports to get involved with like flag football, soccer, and volley ball as well as whatever get-togethers they throw.

Houston life:

The weather here is very different from Kentucky . I started wearing shorts and t-shirts for my street clothes in February when temperatures went into the upper 60s. Today we had a high of about 85 degrees, which a fellow co-op who grew up around here said actually felt a little chilly in comparison to summer weather , that it was actually too cool for shorts for him (my eyes bugged out on that one). It's apparently going to get very muggy and extremely hot here starting in May , so when your summer co-op tour comes around, be prepared to sweat. Otherwise, having a nice, mild winter with average temperatures in the 40s and 50s was refreshing in comparison to Kentucky winter. We had a single cold snap that put us below freezing for two days, which apparently almost never happens here. In fact, when we had a little freezing rain, which didn't seem to accumulate at all, there were wrecks all over the city, so the biggest worry here during light winter precipitation are the other drivers from Texas who have no experience with even seeing it.

The shop and restaurant scene here is similar to Kentucky . There is the usual manner of fast food and chain department stores, as well as pubs and bars for those of you over 21. There are the little differences. Say goodbye to Penn Station and the majority of Waffle House. Kroger and Wal-Mart are here, but the main grocery chain is H.E.B. There is no Qdoba, but they do have the similar Freebird's. Make sure to try the fine seafood places here and the hole-in-the-wall Mexican places. Get a goodbye look at our fine Kentucky farms and the rolling terrain, for this place is flat and a metropolis (but hooray for the beaches about an hour away!"

After summer classes, Tyler returns to Houston Fall '07.