{"id":767696,"date":"2023-10-04T08:00:54","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T12:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=767696"},"modified":"2023-10-04T08:00:54","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T12:00:54","slug":"nasas-modern-history-makers-abigail-rodriguez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=767696","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s Modern History Makers: Abigail Rodriguez"},"content":{"rendered":"
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3 min read<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Modern History Makers: Abigail Rodriguez<\/h1>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
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\"Abigail<\/figure>
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Abigail Rodriguez poses in front of the concentrator mirror in the Electric Propulsion and Power Laboratory at NASA\u2019s Glenn Research Center. <\/div>\n
Credits: NASA\/Bridget Caswell<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Finding a job at NASA doesn\u2019t always happen on the first try.<\/p>\n

For Abigail Rodriguez, she wasn\u2019t going to let anything get in her way of working for NASA and was resilient in finding a job where she could use her civil engineering degree. Rodriguez attended multiple job fairs and applied online until she found an opportunity that was the perfect fit.<\/p>\n

She accepted a spring internship at NASA\u2019s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and near the end of her time at Kennedy, she received a call from NASA\u2019s Glenn Research Center offering her a summer internship in Cleveland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went home for two weeks; then I was back on a plane again to come here for my summer internship,\u201d Rodriguez said.<\/p>\n

Home for Rodriguez is A\u00f1asco, Puerto Rico. Growing up in the public school system, she was involved with numerous extracurricular activities and always had her sights set on NASA.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe grew up in the shuttle era, watching all the launches and landings,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cBuilding a space station was something as a kid you couldn\u2019t comprehend, but it was so cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among her extracurriculars was an after-school program that promoted math and science among students grades 4 through 12.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where I got a lot of interest in going into STEM,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cWe did so many interesting projects and learned the physics of everything. We were all creative minds, and it was something I really liked.\u201d<\/p>\n

She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico at Mayag\u00fcez<\/a> <\/a>with a bachelor\u2019s degree in civil engineering and a master\u2019s degree in engineering management. After four other internships with NASA, she accepted a Pathways Intership in safety and mission assurance in 2013.<\/p>\n

A decade later, she leads safety and mission assurance for the Fission Surface Power<\/a> project, which aims to design a fission power system that would provide at least 40 kilowatts of power \u2014 enough to continuously run 30 households for 10 years \u2013 and demonstrate it on the Moon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe farther we go away from the Sun, the more we will need to rely on innovative energy sources like nuclear,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cI\u2019m setting the path for future projects and, hopefully, making this a lot easier for the person who comes after me.\u201d<\/p>\n

In her role, Rodriguez ensures the project and its technical planning are consistent with NASA\u2019s safety and mission assurance design processes, specifications, rules, and best practices. She supervises reliability assessments, environmental impact statements, and approval processes, as well as collaborates with outside agencies like the Department of Energy and Department of Transportation.<\/p>\n

Exposure to exciting projects like this has kept Rodriguez in the field of safety. She\u2019s had the opportunity to work on projects ranging from an International Space Station experiment to one focused on monitoring environmental conditions in Lake Erie.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn safety, you touch so many different areas that NASA is involved in,\u201d Rodriguez said. \u201cIt\u2019s intimidating, but it makes me feel proud I\u2019m here.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASA is in a Golden Era of aeronautics and space exploration. In partnership with commercial and private businesses, NASA is currently making history with significant missions such as\u00a0<\/em>Artemis<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Quesst<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> and electrified aviation.\u00a0The NASA\u2019s Modern History Makers series highlights members of NASA Glenn\u2019s workforce who make these remarkable missions possible.<\/em><\/p>\n

Jacqueline Minerd<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Glenn Research Center<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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7 min read<\/div>\n
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\n Click here for original story, NASA\u2019s Modern History Makers: Abigail Rodriguez<\/a>
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\nSource: NASA Breaking News <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

3 min read NASA\u2019s Modern History Makers: Abigail Rodriguez Abigail Rodriguez poses in front of the concentrator mirror in the Electric Propulsion and Power Laboratory at NASA\u2019s Glenn Research Center.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":767697,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-767696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-NASA"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=767696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/767697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=767696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=767696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=767696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}