Young Tatiana Roy sits in bed, listening to her father as he reads her the story of the three astronauts of Apollo 11. As her first bedtime story, Apollo 11’s moon-landing was a catalyst for what would become her vision for the future. To pursue her passion for space technology and exploration, senior Tatiana Roy attended an eight-week NASA internship at the Dryden Flight Research Center in Palmdale, California this summer. There, she worked with two of her fellow interns collecting data about small aircraft called DROIDs (Dryden Remotely Operated Integrated Drones).
Tatiana Roy and over 2,000 other students were able to explore the world of science and technology through the INSPIRE (Interdisciplinary National Science Project Incorporating Research and Education) program. The INSPIRE program consists of an online learning community, where students must apply for entrance and then complete online assignments to accumulate points, with the goal to gain the most points and reach the top of the leader board. For the month of December, Tatiana Roy was number one on the leader board. The assignments can range from discussing science topics on an online forum, participating in group chats with NASA engineers and scientists, and lab-like activities such as calculations of trajectories.
If a student can keep up a good score in the online learning community, they will then submit another application for the eight-week internship that summer. To apply, a student must be at least 16 years of age, in high school, and maintain a grade point average of at least 3.0. NASA reviews extracurricular activities, community service hours, and other points of interest in the application process as well. Acceptance is difficult to achieve, however, as there are only ten NASA facilities with five to ten interns each. Tatiana Roy was one of few students admitted into the program due to her impressive dedication to science, which includes her strong involvement in the school’s FIRST Robotics team, leadership role as president of SDA’s Space Exploration Club, and constant enthusiasm for math and science.
At the Dryden Flight Research Center, Tatiana Roy and her fellow interns performed tests on the DROIDs, whose main function is flight simulation. “I liked being able to do real time experiments. We had inertial measurement tools that sent data directly to the computer,” said Tatiana Roy. There were many different tests, including measuring the moments of inertia on three axes using pendulum swing tests.
They did face problems, however, such as when they had to do uncertainty and sensitivity analyses, which require a lot of advanced math and physics. Having to use MATLAB, a programming language, posed a difficulty as well, since none of the interns were familiar with it. Nonetheless, such obstacles were eventually overcome, with the help of NASA’s engineers. “Dryden is really cool, because you can just walk into someone’s office and set up a time for them to help you. So we got experienced engineers to help us,” explained Tatiana Roy.
Life outside of the workplace was filled with adventure as well. Tatiana Roy stayed with five other interns at a hotel that was paid for courtesy of the INSPIRE program. In their free time, they went to Universal Studios, toured Cal Tech—which she is applying to, though it’s not her top choice—and frequently engaged in nerf gun battles. “The nerf gun battles made doing laundry dangerous,” said Tatiana Roy.
The professional engineers at NASA also provided the interns with amusement and exciting stories to tell. “I got to talk to the chief engineer of the SR-71 Blackbird, which is the giant plane at the front of the Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park,” Tatiana Roy said. That’s something to look out for at Winter Formal this year, which is being held at said Air and Space Museum. Tatiana Roy made another accomplishment when she got a NASA engineer to flap his arms wildly with victory.
In the future, she plans to continue to pursue her passion and become an engineer, preferably at NASA or a similar group. “I don’t know exactly what kind of engineer I want to be yet, but I plan to major in physics so I will be able to choose what kind of engineering later on,” said Tatiana Roy.
The future is looking bright for Tatiana Roy, and as they say: shoot for the moon, and even if you miss, you will land among the stars. Of course, Tatiana Roy may just choose to land on Mars instead.