MARIA CABALLERO

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Consulting Engineer

Educational Product

Educators & Students Lexile Level: 810-1000L

Level

2

Lexile Ranges

Level 1: Less than 810

Level 2: 810-1000L

Level 3: 1010-1200L

Level 4: 1210-1400L
If Maria Caballero could have one superpower, it would be to fly. 

When she was young, Maria would lay in her yard, stare up at the sky and dream about making 

airplanes. She did not know how to make that dream come true. She only knew she loved 

airplanes. 

Maria and her family lived in California. When the first space shuttle was going to land on a 

runway in California, Maria went to be near the runway and saw the big spaceship appear in the 

sky and make a perfect landing. She knew right then that she wanted to work for NASA when 

she grew up.

“Since I cannot fly for real, the next best thing is working for NASA because they are involved 

with things that fly and blast through our atmosphere, such as airplanes and rockets,” Maria said. 

Today, Maria is an adult and works for NASA in California at the very place where she watched 

the space shuttle land when she was a child.

Maria’s job is to help make sure no one in the public could get hurt if there were a problem 

with a drone during a test flight. A drone is the nickname for an airplane that doesn’t have any 

pilots inside the aircraft. Most drones are flown by pilots who are on the ground. The pilots use 

cameras and information on their computer screens to fly the drone and tell them where the 

drone is at all times.

ADVENT
Part of Maria’s job to is to help make sure the drone will not hurt anyone, or anything, if it should 

start flying on its own.

It’s a job she has worked hard to get. The path Maria took to get to her job today began in 

California, made a stop in Virginia on the U.S. east coast, and returned her to the California desert.

Maria grew up in a migrant family in the San Joaquin Valley in California. Migrant families move 

around to work where they can find jobs, but sometimes they can stay in one spot for many years.

When Maria was 12, she began working in the fields, spending her summer days picking grapes 

and garlic. During the school year she spent most of her time on her studies and did homework 

every night. Her parents could not help her very much because they did not speak English.

But that was OK. Maria’s parents loved her and told her she was doing a good job. Maria 

remembers how her father wanted her to experience life working in the fields so she could see 

how hard life could be if she didn’t do well in school.

Her hard work was rewarded. After high school, Maria attended college in California to learn 

engineering. She was allowed to take some harder classes. This would help her when she worked 

for NASA. 

Maria was the first in her family to go to college, so she didn’t know what to expect. She signed 

up for a class that was too hard for her and had to quit the class. She found some help, tried again, 

and got an ‘A.’

URE
Today, Maria knows there were some things she could have done to help in college. One idea 

was to get a summer job at a big airplane company so she could practice what she was learning. 

Another idea was to find a caring person who could give her advice about doing well in school.

Maria said another thing she learned in college was how important it is to work hard at 

everything you do so you can do a good job. She said that might mean working long hours and 

giving up doing something else that might be more fun.

After graduating from college, Maria accepted a job working on tanks for the Army in 

California. Then she worked in Virginia helping to launch rockets to the edge of space. These 

rockets carried science experiments.

One of Maria’s favorite jobs was the first one she had after starting to work for NASA. The 

job was to help work on Helios, a very big, but very light airplane that was powered by the 

sun. Helios set a world record for flying higher than any other airplane that wasn’t powered 

by rockets. It flew more than 18 miles high. Maria got to travel to Hawaii to help with a test 

of Helios.

Maria also works with others at NASA to teach students about aviation and space. She 

volunteers to speak at local schools about her life as a rocket scientist and aerospace engineer. She 

also talks about her childhood working in the fields and what she learned from that hard work.

Her hope is that her work at NASA will inspire kids with the excitement and wonder of 

aviation and space, just as she was.

NP-2024-01-3223-HQ

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Headquarters

300 E. Street, SW

Washington, DC 20546

Educators! 

Guide/assessment files 

for this reader are at 

https://www.nasa.gov/

stem-content/

maria-caballero/