Susan Fehres chat 10/21/96

Susan, What was the reaction of your parents when you got your NASA
position and did they support you and in what ways? 

My parents reaction to my NASA job - they were as amazed as I was. Had I
realized I would get to work for NASA, I probably would have been more
cheerful about my job search.

***

Dear Susan, you look really young to have such a big job at what age did
you start working and what is your age if you don't mind?

I am 41, and I figure I must look pretty young because of basic immaturity
- I like to rock-climb and motorcycle and do all sorts of silly things. 

***

Dear Dr. Fehres, my name is Elizabeth and I want to know how you spend
quality time with your family and do you plan to have children and how
will you balance career with kids at home?

Dear Rachael, I do have a daughter, age 2 1/2, and I very much plan to
have at least one more. I do my best to spend quality time with her (and
my husband). We do a lot of hiking together, reading books, playing games,
basically my weekends and evenings are family time, except for
when my husband puts her to bed and I get to read science fiction or the
newspaper. 

***

I am 13 yrs.old and my question is do you make alot of money and how
important is making money to you?

About my salery - yes I do make a lot of money, about two times the
average salery in the US. I make about $71,000 a year. 

***

Dear Dr. Fehres, I am 16 my question is how long did you have to go to
school and how important is undergraduate courses to your career choice?

Dear Ann, I went to school longer than necessary. I took math and science
every year in high school ( the smartest thing i ever did) Then I started
college as a math major, because I loved math and didnt think about it
much. I was also taking language and literature classes for fun, but I
figured they were a good hobby, but a hard way to make a living. Anyway, I
dropped out and worked a while, at unskilled jobs ( (bus driver, museum
guard, assistant accountant, nurse's aide) and
decided to get back to school and get some job skills. scholarships helped
me stay in school till age 32. I could have finished my PhD by age 26 had
I been more directed.

***

Dear Dr. Fehres, I am 15 my question is was being an engineer your first
career choice or did you switch around in college until you found a major
you liked?

Re was enginneering my first major - No , I am typical of women
engineeers, many of us switched around because we didnt have clear
role-models or clear job goals set by our parents. I majored in : Math,
the Chemistry, then Forestry, then Mechanical ENgineeering with Applied
Math. (as you see,I never took typing!) When at the age of 23 or so, I
asked myself what I wanted to do for work , I decided I wanted to help
solve pollution problems and get paid for that. That led me to politics
(ugh) or else engineering. I didnt really know what engineering was, but
it sounded ok. and it turned out to be great, actually.

***

Is your career fun and interesting or just all hard work?

Sometimes its fun; Some great people; Projects like Mars landers; Unusual
freedom. I can go off to a university library and read, or work in the
lab, or be at my desk. We even have surprises. They gave me $100,000 to
spend on equipment, then took it away!

***

Could you do your work from home? Could you be productive from home or do
you think you have to go into the office?

Could I work from home? Yes,  I worked from home part time for four
months after my daughter was born. Between part time work, sick leave and
vacation, I only went about one month without pay.  I brought my computer
home from my office, and so I was well connected through email, not only
to my research group but to people I interact with a lot at other NASA
centers and in industry, and spent a lot of my time talking and emailing
other researchers about projects we are involved in, and writing reports.
I would be typing at the computer keyboard while my daughter slept in a
baby sling on me.   Mothering can be monotonous at times so it was great
to continue a level of professional interaction part time, to have
something to think about besides rashes, diapers and baby.   It was my
boss's suggestion to do this and because he supported this so well it
worked out fine. One engineering professor I know has 3 kids.  She worked
mostly from her home office and had a babysitter there at all times.
Because I can't work from home most of the time, I am more comfortable
having my daughter at the very good day care center at my work.   I hope
every workplace will have them by the time you look for work.

***

Dear Dr. Fehres,I am 19 and my question is were you everunderestimated by
family, friends , teachers or mentors and if so how did you overcome that?

Was I ever underestimated by family and friends - yes. In the sense that,
in my earlier years, girls were expected to become full time wives and
mothers, no alternatives allowed. It annoyed or disturbed my teachers that
I was good at math, I could tell. It seemed to me the only way I could
have an interesting life was to pretend I had been born male - so I was
about as unfeminine a teenage as you could find - pink etc still nauseate
me, because I thought I had to refuse to be female. I REALLY hope that
things have changed by now.

Your sense of self needs to come from within you. It would be nice to have
adults or friends cheering you on, but sometimes that just isn't your
fate. You can look around though and see that there are indeed great
possibilities for you- you are a free agent. you make yourself. In school
you dont have much choice, but that is just prepearation for an adult life
as a real loose cannon. 

***

Do you think it's hard to get back into school after taking time off in
other types of jobs where you didn't use your technical brain so much?

It was easy for me to leave minimum wage, hard or boring jobs to go back
to school - I was thrilledt hen, after I ran out of money the Financial
Aid office gave me loans and scholarships. For graduate school in
engneering, I had a National Science Foundation Fellowship, a high honor.
I think it was based on my very high GRE exam scores (like an SAT for
Graduate STudents) which resulted from all those unnecessary Lit and
Language classes I took. 

***

Dear Dr. Fehres, I am 16 and my question is which spacecraft do you put
insulation in and what are your favorite pet projects and do you plan on
doing any inventions of your own?
We're interested in what you do in your job and what kinds of spacecraft
you work on. 

Spacecraft - I am doing some work on improving the Space Shuttle
insulation, but that already works fine, so mostly I work on insulation
for spacecraft coming back from Mars, which would be coming back faster
than a mission from the Space Station so it would get hotter when it slows
down in the earths atmosphere. Another spacecraft are Mars landers - we
need to keep scientific instruments below melting temperature before they
land on Mars! I am also working on insulation for cryogenic tanks - liquid
oxygen (90Kelvin) and Liquid Hydrogen (20K) have to be kept cold enough to
stay liquid. Day to day - I do lab measuremnts, build new materials for
high and low temperatures...

***

I saw the Movie Appollo 13. And I'm wondering about something. What
material is the front of a space shuttle build of? It must be capable to
resist a lot of heat.

Yes, that is the hottest place on the space shuttle - friction with air
heats it up to thousands of degrees. We use Advanced Carbon-Carbon
composites there, where you noticed it was differnet from the body; also
on the edges of the wings.

***

Dear Susan; What college did you go to and do you reccomend it to other
students wanting to pursue scinece and technology careers?

My College (s) : you will laugh. Northern Ill University (Math) University
of Illinios at Urbana(great but huge) Northweestern University Grad School
(Great and beautiful) UC Berkeley
(spectacular) I have been lucky enough to go to some great schools. For
undergrads, the really greatschools dont pay as much attention to you as a
less important school, because they need to concentrate on their grad
students to get reasearch done. On the other hand, it is worth a lot to
have a great school like U of I, MIT, Berekely, whatever, on your resume,
so it may be worth the suffering and alienation. If you are planning on
grad school anyway, you can go to a smaller school
that may treat you better, since only your last degree counts in the
prestige game. A great school is hard on your ego, (other smart student,
JUST as good as you are ! It's horrifying at first) but it's very
stimulating and the other students are all in the same boat as you are...
I would go for the great school, and prepare myself for alienation and
suffering. 

Does any of your work or research carry over into the commercial market -
like clothing or automobiles?

Dear Susan; My name is Andrea and I was wondering what high school did you
go to and what you did for fun when you were a teenager? How much free
time do you have and how many hours a day do you work now?

Thank you for answering everything candidly my name is Pam Bowers and I
have my astronomy girls in the planetarium with me and your insight will
help them make some decisions about what life is really like as a
scientist, thanks and clear skies.

Susan - We are just so thankful for your delightful outlook on life. This
is a great model for some of our students who are undecided about their
careers. Nothing is engraved in stone and they will have a chance to
pursue a career they feel pationate about if they get the basic
foundation.

Thanks for that remark. Nicely put - nothing is fixed except the
limitations you put on your own self. Our school system is especially
favorable to what I call "Re-Treads" - people who had one life and decide
to make over their skills. The European and Japanese school systes prevent
this. But this is part of U.S. individualism, I guess. We are still
pioneers...

Susan Fehres: . . . . Mon, Oct 21, 11:58AM PDT (-0700 GMT). . . [1005 ]
That was fun.