\n<\/p>\n
OK, we generally start with your early years, your childhood, where you\u2019re from, and a little bit about your family at the time. Where you grew up, I think it was in Spain? Do you have siblings, what did your parents do, that sort of thing.\u00a0 And how early was it in your life that you developed an interest in astrophysics or the career that you\u2019re pursuing? What got you interested in that?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, I was born in Spain. I grew up and lived in Spain until three years ago when I moved here. I studied in a small town in Madrid, very close to Madrid. I grew up in a family with my mom, who was a nurse at an elderly care center, and my father, who was a firefighter. They are both now retired, but before my father was a firefighter. he was a mechanic. In my family there was a very good interest in both medical science and technology to try to understand why things happen. I remember that my father used to, before going to work, set up the TV for me to watch \u201cBeakman\u2019s World\u201d. I think it was a 1980\u2019s or 90\u2019s show about scientists who would explain things to kids. I remember that very vividly. And very early, I started to gain an interest in how things worked and why nature looks like it looks, but I never really had a precise idea of what I wanted to do until very late, say university. When I applied to university, I was hesitating between doing engineering or astrophysics or physics in general, I had no idea. I always wanted to become a pilot, too. I started to think \u201cI want to be an astronaut!\u201d But at some point I said, \u201cOK, this may be very difficult and what happens if you fail? What happens if you never become an astronaut, for example? You must find something that you really like and is worth doing even if you don\u2019t make it.\u201d So I chose physics because it\u2019s a nice way to understand the whole universe, beyond just engineering. But I never lost track of engineering really. I\u2019ve always been in a mixed world.<\/p>\n Do you have siblings?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, yes. My older brother, Saul, is a firefighter too. He chose to follow my father\u2019s trade. He\u2019s very similar to me. I mean, when we are together, we are always trying to repair something, or building an antenna, or going on a hike or something like that. We are very similar.<\/p>\n The last person we talked to, who was also born in Spain and went to school there, told us that in Spain the education is not like here in America, where you can almost go all through college and not actually know what you want to do. But in Spain you must declare earlier, like at the high school level, and pursue engineering or pursue music or science or something, and you get locked in at that point.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah. In Spain we start choosing fields as early as 14 \u2013 16 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve looked at your list of publications and you have an extensive resume of work, so I\u2019m surprised that you only got interested in this recently.<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve been very lucky. I have had very bright and supportive supervisors and colleagues all this time who taught and guided me.<\/p>\n Where did you go for your undergraduate and your graduate work?<\/strong><\/p>\n I did my undergraduate degree and my masters in Madrid. I was still living with my parents there. In Spain we leave the nest pretty late (laughs).\u00a0 I started there in physics in the Complutense University of Madrid, which is the largest public university in Spain, and it was really hard. I had a hard time in the first two years because, to be honest, I\u2019ve never been very good at math.<\/p>\n That would be a problem<\/strong>.<\/p>\n We are doing this in a NASA interview, but I have to say that I had to ask for help from my friends to keep up. In more practical fields, like the subjects that were related to the laboratory or the telescope, I think I was really good.\u00a0 But in the more theoretical subjects I always had trouble. But that was in the first year of university. When we started switching to more astrophysics and more practical things, it went more smoothly.<\/p>\n So, because you were in astrophysics, that was why you decided to continue and pursue a PhD, which is somewhat of a basic requirement in that kind of a field?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, many of my friends were well focused: you do a degree, then a master\u2019s and a PhD, then you do a post doc, maybe another post doc, and then you are a professor, or something. I never had that path decided. I mean I followed in some way that career, but I think I\u2019ve never been so focused as when I did my master\u2019s and one of my friends said \u201cHey, are you thinking of doing a PhD in this place? And I was like \u201cOK, maybe that would be interesting, to follow the continual theme.\u201d But I wasn\u2019t sure that I wanted to become a professor. I just thought it would be interesting to do a PhD and then start work at ESA or NASA.\u00a0<\/p>\n And the place where you got your PhD, the university, was in the Canary Islands, I believe?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, It\u2019s an amazing place, very beautiful.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know how you could study there. That\u2019s a place people go for vacation!<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh, yeah!\u00a0 Well, that is true.<\/p>\n A very exotic place, I would think. OK. And then what? Did you get your post doc at Ames because you saw the opportunity posted and applied for it? Or did you know somebody? Was there a connection of some kind that got you to Ames?<\/strong><\/p>\n Not really, no. But it was a very critical moment in my life because I had just finished the PhD and it was very intense at the end, so I decided to take some months off, and I started working on a personal project which was building a house.\u00a0 It was in Spain, my grandma\u2019s house. It had been abandoned for many years, so my now wife and I decided to repair it and at the same time I was applying to jobs, trying to find a position. It took six or seven months, and I wasn\u2019t really sure exactly where to go. And then I remembered: \u201cOK, first do the harder thing\u201d, so I applied to NASA, ESA, and CNES. I tried to apply to the hardest things that I would probably not get. I just started sending emails to NASA, and one of the people who answered was Pamela Marcum, my supervisor here. She was very nice and we started working on a project together, to submit. And I think it was February 2019, when we submitted. Then I forgot about it and said \u201cOK, they are never going to answer.\u201d And it was probably in June 2019 that she sent me an email, and said: \u201cI probably shouldn\u2019t tell you this, but they are going to offer you a position at NASA\u201d. And I was like, \u201cWow\u201d!<\/p>\n Wow, indeed!<\/strong><\/p>\n It was a very scary moment because I had no, absolutely no, experience on how the immigration process for USA and NASA worked, in terms of \u201cWhen should I be there?\u201d \u201cCan I bring my wife?\u201d \u201cCan she move with me, or do I have to move alone?\u201d\u00a0 But after a couple of days of very scary questions, we were very happy to know we were moving to the United States!\u00a0<\/p>\n So up until then, you hadn\u2019t really had a reason to master English as a second language?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, my PhD and all my publications were in English, so it was necessary for me to learn it, although it is hard to master it from a non-English speaking country.<\/p>\n I saw in one of your bio\u2019s, probably in your resume, where it described your language skills and showed English 100%, Spanish 100%, and even some Russian and some French. I\u2019m always interested in people who are going to somewhere where they don\u2019t speak the language. Or maybe you did at the time, I don\u2019t know, or had but a modicum of English training, especially to an educational setting where it\u2019s important to be able to communicate and understand.<\/strong><\/p>\n I think that was the moment when I really started to feel more or less comfortable with English. But I must also say that my supervisor was British.<\/p>\n OK, that would help.<\/strong><\/p>\n He had been living in Spain for 30 years, John Beckman, and he didn\u2019t want to speak in English with Spanish people because to be honest, he speaks Spanish way better than we speak English. He was a lot of help in many ways but not so much for the English. However, moving to the United States teaches you not just the language but the way to express things, the way to make people comfortable with what you say. I think that in this we are way more direct, in some sense, but in another sense, I feel like the Americans don\u2019t want to \u2018put flowers\u2019 in questions\u201d, they just want to answer the question, which is something that I really like. So, I was very comfortable very early, although there are many layers of language to be learned.<\/p>\n Wonderful! That\u2019s a great story and pretty direct as far as getting to Ames. Some of the people we interview, their road to Ames is all over the place and just sort of happened, while yours was straight on, right out of your PhD practically, so that\u2019s great.<\/strong><\/p>\n To be honest, I spent a few months in the European Space Agency as a visitor, but that happened after I applied to NASA, so it was just hanging there. When I started my PhD, we were studying galaxies, basically galaxy evolution. The main idea is that galaxies are the building blocks of the universe. You have planets which are rotating around stars, and stars form groups which are galaxies, but galaxies are the basic unit that builds the universe. You look for something that could make a universe, and it\u2019s a galaxy. It contains all the ingredients to make the universe.\u00a0 And when we look at the picture of a galaxy in space, we always see a bright core and then a disk, maybe with some spiral arms and that\u2019s the end, darkness. It\u2019s just emptiness between galaxies. And this is not really true. Now, we know that galaxies are just like icebergs, in the sense that we only see the tip of them. And when we use more powerful telescopes, they start to grow and grow and grow and become bigger and bigger and bigger, without frontiers. So, space is filled with stars, on and on. That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n The bigger the telescopes, the more you find, that\u2019s absolutely true. And I\u2019m glad you brought up the galaxies because one of the things we will ask you toward the end of this interview is if you have some pictures that represent the things you\u2019ve talked about in your life, your work, or your family, we would like to include those. They\u2019re always very interesting. And I found that picture of the Whirlpool Galaxy.<\/strong><\/p>\n Oh, yes!<\/p>\n The Whirlpool Galaxy is a classic spiral galaxy. At only 30 million light years distant and fully 60 thousand light years across, M51, also known as NGC 5194, is one of the brightest and most picturesque galaxies on the sky. (nasa.gov\/image)<\/p>\n It was labeled picture of the day from some organization, and it was absolutely beautiful. I hope that we can include that picture as part of your post when we get it ready to go.<\/strong><\/p>\n I think that picture is very beautiful, I would say it has huge emotional value to me because when I landed here at Ames, one of the dream things I wanted to do when I just arrived was to work with the Stratospheric Observatory for Far Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), although I had no relevant experience. We don\u2019t have that kind of facility in Spain. And then I saw a picture of another galaxy called NGC 1068, which is really beautiful.\u00a0<\/p>\n Magnetic fields in NGC 1068, or M77, are shown as streamlines over a visible light and X-ray composite image of the galaxy.\u00a0 (<\/p>\n It was observed by SOFIA. And I sent an e-mail to one of the PI\u2019s of the article, and said: \u201cThis is really beautiful. Can I work with you?\u201d (laughs)\u00a0 And just like that he said. \u201cYeah. I\u2019m in the SOFIA building, just come over and we\u2019ll have a chat\u201d. And two years later I was flying with him in SOFIA!\u00a0<\/p>\n SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, is a Boeing 747SP aircraft modified to carry a 2.7-meter (106-inch) reflecting telescope (with an effective diameter of 2.5 meters or 100 inches). Flying into the stratosphere at 38,000-45,000 feet puts SOFIA above 99 percent of Earth\u2019s infrared-blocking atmosphere, allowing astronomers to study the solar system and beyond in ways that are not possible with ground-based telescopes. SOFIA was made possible through a partnership between NASA and the German Space Agency at DLR.<\/p>\n (Image courtesy nasa.gov)<\/p>\n \u00a0It was one of the most amazing experiences I\u2019ve ever had. And I know that it would have been impossible if I had never got that position at Ames. So, it\u2019s something that I just can\u2019t explain with words.<\/p>\n That\u2019s a great story and it\u2019s a great picture, one that immediately someone would look at and say \u201cthat is beautiful\u201d. And besides being beautiful, what is it? As with science everything we see or discover prompts more questions. So, it\u2019s very interesting.\u00a0 And regarding astronaut training: would you like to talk a little bit about your experience as an astronaut candidate, how that came about, and what it was like?<\/strong><\/p>\n Sure. I always wanted to be an astronaut and I\u2019m still into it. I remember when I had just started my degree there was the latest call from the European Space Agency for astronauts in 2008. I took notes of everything: how they looked, what expertise they had, and basically with that very limited amount of information you make your way to the next call. So last year they opened this call to the next class of European astronauts in 2022, and I applied.\u00a0 Another friend of mine applied too, and we were like, \u201cOK, we will get ditched in the first cut, so don\u2019t worry about it\u201d. But I got an invitation to the next round.\u00a0 The first round was just sending in the CV and answering a couple questions, very, very general information.\u00a0 But the second round was very interesting: you get a trip to Germany.\u00a0 And there is the psychometrical testing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Well, you\u2019re a serious candidate when you get to that point.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, yeah. I mean, when we applied there were 22,000 people in the pool, and in the next round there were like 2,000. I don\u2019t remember exactly the number, 1,000 or 2,000.\u00a0 So we were doing all these psychological tests and screens. We were in a very impressive room, full of other candidates and they looked very, very serious and were answering the questions at the same time, while maybe you were hesitating with some of them. It was very impressive. But something that really got to me is that other candidates were very, very nice. They were all kind. There was no competition at all. People were trying to help each other and keeping calm. They would say \u201cDon\u2019t worry about this. You\u2019ll probably get the next test right\u201d. So then I went home and I said, OK, this time I am absolutely out because I met some people who are absolutely amazing, far better than me. I mean, there were pilots, military, people working in deep cave mines, industry, even Antarctica, who were very, very smart.\u00a0 But I got an invitation to the next step, and these were more personal with rounds of psychological interviews, many, many hours with the psychologists. At this point we were 400 candidates left. I got interviewed by Thomas Pesquet, one of the European astronauts, who asked questions about how you would behave in personal situations, like risk situations, when your life may be threatened and at some point, you start thinking, \u201cI\u2019m just an astronomer. I don\u2019t have many experiences like that.\u201d\u00a0 I mean when I was in Canary Islands, for example, I learned how to dive so I got a few experiences of \u201cyour friend is running out of air underwater\u201d, things like that and apparently that got me and other 100 candidates through to the next round, which was very interesting: it was a medical test.\u00a0 Basically, you spend a week in Germany and everything that you can imagine can be tested, will be tested. Everything!<\/p>\n Wow!<\/strong><\/p>\n But it\u2019s very, very nice because we were not alone, we were eight people from all over the place, living together for a week. We had a Finnish candidate, a German, a British, one of the selected astronauts was with me in that round, and we were getting along all together, it was kind of like \u201cback to school\u201d and we were on a trip. But at that point the selection is completely out of your control because there\u2019s nothing that you can do to fix anything.\u00a0 For example, you may have something in your heart that is perfectly fine to live on Earth, but it\u2019s not OK to fly to high altitudes, and there\u2019s nothing you can do to fix that.\u00a0 At some point you relax, and say, \u201cOK, I\u2019ve done everything I can to be here, to be fit, to be ready\u201d. So, you just had to relax. I was lucky, very lucky, to pass the medical test. I mean, at that point the ones who passed the medical test were like 50 people from the initial 22,000.<\/p>\n That\u2019s amazing!<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, it is! And then there was yet another round of interviews (Phase 5) with the head of the astronaut team, and finally the last 25 of us did another interview with the ESA Director General, in Paris (Phase 6), when the last decision was made, so I went through all the process really until the last point.<\/p>\n Sounds like you did, and you could get down to #2, and if they\u2019re only choosing one then you did absolutely everything right, better than everybody else except #1, and at that point it\u2019s somewhat subjective because all of you in the 50 were extremely well qualified.<\/strong><\/p>\n Absolutely.<\/p>\n And it might have just been the luck of the draw.<\/strong><\/p>\n I had the opportunity to be there with the best. I think it\u2019s something that makes you feel better because, I have met many of the selected astronauts and they\u2019re all amazing. And when you met someone like that and become friends, you could say \u201cOK, if they had selected me, they would not have selected him or her, and we were just the same.\u201d So that\u2019s how I think of it. I\u2019ll just keep training for the next astronaut selection.<\/p>\n You probably made a lot of friends. Talk about networking! My goodness, you\u2019ve got a network of people from around the world that you\u2019ve gotten to learn and to know and be close to and are probably lifelong friends with some of them. So that is great. Well, I admire your ambition to do this and the effort and determination that you showed to go all the way to the end of the sequence, and it takes away nothing from you that they wind up selecting someone else. So, are you going to age out of this or are you going to take another shot at it?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, it takes some time to rebuild everything but at some point, you realize, \u201cHey, I am 32 years old. I\u2019m working at NASA, I made it to the last round of an astronaut selection, so I\u2019m physically fit, I passed the psychological test, so I think I have more reasons than ever to apply again. So if another opportunity appears, sure I will apply.<\/p>\n Well, you\u2019re already an impressive success in your pursuits, in your career and in your work, so congratulations on that. You mentioned your wife. Would you like to say anything about your family? I don\u2019t know if you have children, or you have pets or . . .?<\/strong><\/p>\n No, we don\u2019t have kids yet! We live here in Mountain View and well, I think this story is also her story because when we moved together to the United States, she was finishing her master\u2019s degree in psychology, and after that we would both be unemployed. So, when we moved here together, we were like, \u201cOK, this is a huge opportunity, but we\u2019re going to be starting from zero.\u201d Find a job, find out how to get our transcripts from the university to the United States and everything.\u201d\u00a0 She also had a really hard time to figure out the way through the American system of education. But she made it and she\u2019s now working at Stanford Pediatrics. She\u2019s studying brain development of preterm babies as a research coordinator.<\/p>\n Stanford Pediatrics, wow! That\u2019s impressive. I would think there would be quite a competition for those jobs.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, it was a very long interview process for her.<\/p>\n Well, good for her.<\/strong><\/p>\n She\u2019s got some very good skills. She worked as a therapist with kids with autism, and she is an experienced researcher in psychology. So, at some point this group at Stanford was looking for someone who was able to work with kids and with magnetic resonance, to understand how the brain works and how it develops over time. So, she was the perfect fit. She is very happy and loves her work.\u00a0<\/p>\n During this pandemic, you came to Ames in 2019, and you live in Mountain View, so the closing of the Center probably didn\u2019t affect your commute? Are you able to do your job pretty much remotely? You don\u2019t have a lab or anything that you have to come in for?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, most of my job, I can do remotely. I think that the impact was from a more personal point of view because when Covid hit we had been in the USA for only five months. We barely knew anyone. So, it was a more personal impact in the sense that we had just moved here and part of constructing a routine is to go to work, meet some people, friends, maybe establish a network and meet some coworkers to have coffee with.\u00a0 But with the pandemic everything became surreal because we were just working through our computers and at some point, it\u2019s hard to believe that you\u2019re working where you are working and that there are many, many people on the other side of the screen. It takes some real effort to keep your mind healthy in that environment because it\u2019s very easy \u2013 not just for us here at NASA but for everyone, students or everyone that was working and starting a career \u2013 to be distracted and become affected by imposter syndrome. When you are working in long isolation through a computer it is not hard to start losing track about who cares about what you are doing and who is interested in it because you are just sending emails, submitting papers, and proposals. So, I think it\u2019s very important to keep track of and keep in contact with students and people working remotely. I think without a physical place to work, you enter this university with people and a big logo in the door and I think that\u2019s something important because you get inside and It\u2019s like, \u201cOK, I\u2019m part of this community, part of this university, part of NASA, part of Stanford, part of whatever you\u2019re working with.\u201d You can miss some of that if you\u2019re just working remotely, you miss a lot of that. I think it takes a lot of effort to continue working in that kind of condition but obviously we\u2019re in an emergency and there are some priorities, but it\u2019s not easy.<\/p>\n You mentioned impostor syndrome. Refresh my memory of what that is and how it affects your sense of communicating with your colleagues.<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, imposter syndrome is a psychological condition that makes you doubt your skills or accomplishments. It happens a lot when you are working on something very specific, for example in science it is super common, you get the idea that what you\u2019re doing is not important at all and it may not be affecting other people. I would say that 90% of the astronomers I know have been affected by this at some point, and think \u201cOK, this is not important, what I\u2019m doing. How do I transform this knowledge that I am working for to a real impact on the community?\u201d That\u2019s something that I think becomes way more common and harder when you are isolated in your house.<\/p>\n So, it makes you feel less important or less valued, as if you were an imposter and everybody else is real but you\u2019re not?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, exactly that.\u00a0 I think in astronomy it is particularly easy to get that because everything is so far away. It\u2019s hard to keep track of what is the real impact of what you\u2019re doing right here and now.\u00a0 For example, that was one of the questions in the astronaut selection process. One of the questions was \u201cOK, you are an astronomer. Why do you think that is important? Why should we care?\u201d My answer is I\u2019ve been working my whole life with the Hubble Space Telescope, so I said, \u201cWell, the Space Telescope discovered that 95% of the universe is not made of the same atoms that are here in this room. It\u2019s like someone told you that magic exists.\u201d And I think that\u2019s amazing. It was a pretty honest answer. I was saying \u201cThat\u2019s important. It may be far away, but it\u2019s important.\u201d<\/p>\n So, you\u2019re doing well in your career and ambitions and so forth. What advice would you give to a student just starting out who would like to have a career like you\u2019re having?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, it\u2019s hard to give just one piece of advice, but I would say to find something that you really like and work on that. It may be hard, you may want to become a scientist, or a doctor or anything else, and it may be really hard, but I think it\u2019s harder to work on something that you don\u2019t like for your whole life. I think it\u2019s way, way harder, but at the same time it\u2019s hard to land exactly where you want. In my experience, there is no plan that survives the implementation. You make a plan and think that you\u2019re going to do something, but it never happens the way that you think it will. My strategy was to, in a more practical way, find many things that I really like and apply to all of them, starting from the hardest to the to the easiest one. Well, I succeeded in having a post doc at NASA, but before that I applied to 20 jobs, and I never got any. It was just really rejection, after rejection after rejection. So, I consider my myself very fortunate to be here, but I cannot say that it was the first shot. I think that in the time of social media it\u2019s very easy to just see the stars, the successes of people. No one publishes \u201cOh, I got rejected at NASA\u201d. But that happens obviously.<\/p>\n That\u2019s good.\u00a0 I probably misstated it when I said that your path has been fairly direct, but you had a lot of rejections along the way and you have to not let them beat you down, but just keep going with what you\u2019re passionate about.<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, and that applies also to the astronaut process. I mean you may want to be an astronaut, then you apply, but it is true that, for example, the commander of Apollo 13, James Lovell, applied to be one of the first round of Mercury astronauts but he got cut for medical reasons and yet he applied again, and he became an astronaut. There are many examples of great people that had to apply many times.<\/p>\n So, we\u2019ve talked a lot about your work. It\u2019s fascinating, but we also want to touch on a few other things, and one of my favorite questions is: you\u2019ve got all this stuff going on in your life with your work and all that, but what do you do for fun?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, I grew up in a house full of tools and I like doing things with my hands. We have a pretty old car here, a Subaru from, I think it\u2019s 22 years old now! And I really like to spend time with it learning mechanics. It\u2019s something that I really enjoy. And moving here to the United States was also a blessing for doing hiking and camping around. I\u2019m still trying to comprehend the beauty of the American wilderness. California is amazing. I mean, we are planning a road trip around the United States and traveling is something that I really, really love. It\u2019s something that I could do partly because of my job, but also just for fun. It\u2019s just something that I really, really enjoy.<\/p>\n Do you have any musical talents, perhaps? Play any instruments?<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019ve never been a good musician. I like music, I like music a lot. I listen to it.\u00a0 I enjoy many types of music, mostly rock, electronic, but many other types of music, but I\u2019ve never been gifted with the talent of playing an instrument with my hands.<\/p>\n Well, I regret that I haven\u2019t either, but that\u2019s the way my life has worked out. How about your taste in reading? What book might we find on your nightstand?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, right now I\u2019m a lot into psychology books and essays. My wife has started sending me books to better understand her job. And there\u2019s this book called \u201cA Primate\u2019s Memoir\u201d by a professor at Stanford named Robert Sapolsky. It\u2019s a really good book. I read it very recently. It\u2019s an amazing story about this scientist who went to Kenya to study baboons at the age of 19 or 20, with barely any money, doing a PhD in baboon psychology and it\u2019s just amazing. I mean, I love that book.<\/p>\n We also like to ask who, or perhaps what, inspires you?<\/strong><\/p>\n Wow. Ah, well, that\u2019s a hard question. I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a single person, but well, of course there\u2019s my PhD supervisor, John Beckman. He has been a huge inspiration to me. He\u2019s an astronomer working at the Canary Islands, but he was also working at NASA Ames thirty years before me, working with this mission called \u201cASSESS\u201d. They were flying on an airplane to train astronauts, European astronauts, before the first selection of astronauts happened, in the \u201880s. They were working with astronaut Claude Nicollier who would fly twice to repair the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit and basically, they were training human beings to become mechanics in space, which is really hard. And after that he was working also on airborne astronomy with the Kuiper Airborne Observatory and a Concorde that was meant to observe the solar eclipse. He has done many, many things throughout his life, which to me is an inspiration because it is a demonstration that you can have many lives.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve already talked about images and pictures. And we\u2019re going to ask if you will include some pictures when you return the transcript with whatever corrections and changes you make. We do have another question: Do you have a favorite quote or saying, something that you think about or that guides your life values or philosophies?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, I think we may be very typical, but one thing that I think of every time we try to do something: \u201cWe do it because it is hard<\/em>\u201d. That\u2019s from John Kennedy and I think it is very inspirational.<\/p>\n Yes, that\u2019s a good one.<\/strong><\/p>\n Because that includes many things that we do here. Sometimes, for example, when we do astronomy, we always try to justify things because there are useful, like we are going to extract energy from dark matter, but that\u2019s not true. I mean that\u2019s not why we do things. Sometimes it is just because it\u2019s hard. Like why do you want to repair the Hubble Space Telescope?\u00a0Because it is hard<\/em>. Because you want to do something that\u2019s really difficult and it will prepare you for the next thing, and so on. So, I will just stand with that quote.<\/p>\n I like that. That\u2019s inspiring. And I did see one item that I kind of skipped past and that is: if you weren\u2019t an astrophysicist for NASA, what would your dream job be?<\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t know. I think I would say that my other chosen degree would have been engineering, but that\u2019s very similar to what I do now. I think I could easily become a mechanic or a firefighter, like my dad. (laughs).<\/p>\n I was wondering if you were going to go back to firefighter!<\/strong><\/p>\n Yeah, I mean, it\u2019s not just my father and brother. It\u2019s my cousins and half of my family are firefighters. So, I\u2019m kind of the black sheep! (laughs)<\/p>\n And you said your parents are retired?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, they are both retired. They are happily retired. Right now, they are starting to enjoy their retirement. They are traveling.<\/p>\n Well, knowing how young you are, that makes me feel old! That your parents are retired.\u00a0 Is there anything that we didn\u2019t ask that you wish we had asked, as part of this interview?<\/strong><\/p>\n No, I think I think everything was covered. It was very complete. Just to say thanks to you all and to NASA for everything.\u00a0<\/p>\n OK. Well, thank you. This has been a delight and we\u2019re very glad that you carved out some time to do this. I think it\u2019ll turn out to be wonderful. It usually takes me a couple of weeks to get this on paper and get it back to you, and then you can go through it and then we\u2019ll put it in the queue and then you\u2019ll get your 15 minutes of fame up on our website! And after that it goes into the archive and it\u2019s there forever. And that website is open to the public, so your friends, family, and other people can read your interview.<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s perfect. My mom is going to love it!<\/p>\n Oh, I\u2019m sure. Wonderful Alex. Thank you so much again for chatting with us this morning and we\u2019ll get busy on it and get back to you when it\u2019s ready for your review.<\/strong><\/p>\n Thank you so much.<\/p>\n
Good for you! So, you got your PhD, you\u2019ve done your post doc, or at least have been doing it. So now is perhaps a good time to talk about your work, your science, and why it\u2019s important.<\/strong>\u00a0Because all of NASA\u2019s research and programs are funded by the taxpayers, they have to add value. Can you talk about your work and justify it as to why it should be important to the people who are paying for it?<\/strong><\/p>\n
That\u2019s a good point.<\/strong><\/p>\n