One great aspect of X PRIZEs is that they attract a diverse crowd of bright people to think about a common problem. When I say “diverse” in this context, I’m often referring to people from outside of a given discipline being attracted to prize—such as a number of software experts working on the Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge [1], or a physicist working on the Archon X PRIZE for Genomics. Other times, I’m talking about geographic diversity—like the fact that the Ansari X PRIZE had registered teams doing real work in countries like Argentina or Romania. But today, I’m referring to the fact that prizes allow a chance for those who normally don’t get to run big programs to finally get their shot.

Those of us in the aerospace industry know that, sadly, it’s one that is all too often dominated by older, white males. It’s rare that a woman, or a minority, or a younger person gets to really take charge of a program and make it her own. It’s rarer still that someone who fits into all three of those categories does.

Diana Trujillo is one such person. Diana was one of the top-notch volunteers who helped me and the official Judges of the 2007 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. At the time, she was in her final semester as an Aerospace Engineering student at the University of Maryland [2]. She got to watch first hand as Team Armadillo put all of the theories she was studying in class into practice. When the Cup was over, she returned to school and played a very strong roll in a student project evaluating what it would take for a university to compete in and win the Google Lunar X PRIZE.

I asked Diana to write about her background as a young Colombian woman moving to the USA without any family or knowledge of English, her educational career in university and in NASA internships here in the USA, and her new job as an engineer at Orbital Sciences Corporation [3]—and how X PRIZEs and the X PRIZE Cup have influenced where she is in her career, and where she wants to go.

I was born in Cali, Colombia. I came to the USA in the summer of 2000 to continue mi caminado—to achieve my career goals in the space industry. I moved to Miami without friends or family, and knowing only a little English—quite a scenario for a 17 year-old to adapt to a new culture. But wait! Did I say new culture? I should say, it was the best place to experience the greatest mix of Latino culture you could ever imagine. The "We Speak English" signs in the restaurants and the plentiful Colombian food made me feel like I had moved just two blocks away from home.

After I finished two years of English courses at Miami Dade College [4], I started to take courses towards my AA in Space Science at the same school. Miami Dade’s Kendall campus was filled with ambitious Latinos, who, like me, were preparing for tomorrow by educating themselves and working hard. My time in Miami came to an end when I decided to study Aerospace Engineering—something Miami Dade did not offer. My virtually all-Latino world needed to expand; but how big could my radius grow?

I transferred to the University of Florida [5], a school that was not too far away, and which could offer me a chance to earn a dual degree in aerospace and mechanical engineering. My world definitely grew, despite the fact that UF was bigger than the rest of the town of Gainesville. I had a great time at UF. The classrooms, the professors, the long walks from the library to the engineering building, and the football games in the Swamp (“where only Gators come out alive") are still in my mind.

During my senior year, I was accepted into NASA's summer premier leadership training program for college students, the NASA Academy at Goddard Space Flight Center [6]. Let me tell you, what an awesome 2006 summer! During 10 weeks we traveled to Houston to visit NASA’s Johnson Space Center [7] and the Lunar and Planetary Institute [8]; we went to Huntsville, Alabama to visit NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center [9]; we went to Colorado to visit Lockheed Martin [10], the [11], Ball Aerospace [12], the Space Science Institute [13], the National Space Security Institute [14], the Laboratory for Space & Atmospheric Physics [15], and the Space Foundation [16]; we went white water rafting and caving. When we were not traveling, we were either working on our individual research projects—mine was sampling strategies and storage devices for robotic exploration of hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor—or in our group project, the Enceladus Astrobiology and Geophysics Lander Expedition (EAGLE). I made 19 new friends who, like me, were thirsty for space exploration (and who were also sleeping only 4 hours a day during the whole summer!). I could not have asked for more, or, mejor dicho, “el que quiera más, que le piquen caña”.

The last Friday before my internship ended, my PI offered me the possibility of continuing my research by transferring to the University of Maryland. I flew back to Florida that Friday night, and 38 hours later I was driving back to Maryland with boxes. It was one of those moments when you know you have to follow your gut, but you do not know exactly why. I was leaving behind my friends and my life in Gainesville—but I was moving closer to my life’s dreams. With little hesitation, I transferred to the University of Maryland and continued my studies and research.

A few months later, Maryland was getting colder and the winter was getting close. The winter? Where were mi rico solecito and my 90° Florida sunshine when I needed them most! And then the snow came. I wanted to see and touch the snow, but, no, señor, this was too much. I just wanted to go in hibernation. But things got better. In November, I was asked to return to the NASA Academy as the program’s Operations Manager, along with and my best friend from ‘06 Academy, who would return as the Logistic Manager. Another summer in the Academy, with 17 new friends. I was in a different role, but still had the chance to revive the 06 experience and take it even further. This time around we made it to KSC-for the launch of STS-117. During the launch, I could not stop screaming; I could not believe that I was watching it, the blast making my chest vibrate. Oh God, I need to see another one!

The summer ended and I had one semester left to go. I was still doing research in the same lab, but was now focusing on Lunar Rovers. I was getting used to the idea of working in the space industry, and I needed more. The 2007 Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge 2007 came along, and I volunteered to help in it. What a weekend! I was assigned to assist the Judges. It was really valuable for me to watch the dynamic of a group with so much spaceflight experience, more than all my years of existence on this planet. This group was nothing close to what you experience in a school group. They were friends working together, and had done so much in their careers that you could understand if they showed a bit of arrogance. But no, you could not find a single drop of arrogance in them, and that made me think about my own dynamic and behavior in my groups.

(More after the photo)

 

Diana Trujillo and former intern (and future guest blogger!) Brian Schoening at the 2007 X PRIZE Cup. Photo Credit: N. Skytland

During that same weekend, I had the chance to see some real time engineering. John Carmack and rest of the Armadillo team reminded me of the reason why I chose to be an engineer in the first place--to find a way to make an idea into reality. On the morning of the competition I had the chance to see John Carmack take the Judges through a simulation of the expected flight trajectory of the vehicle, and the sequence of operations during the abort mode. I even felt more connected to the conversation when I realized that Carmack was programming his vehicle in the same language I was currently learning at school. Things got even more exciting that Saturday when the competition began. The clock started and Carmack and part of the team started to drive towards the launch following a huge crane truck carrying MOD-1, their entry in the competition. The public was only one mile away from the launch site, but the Judges and we volunteers were even closer. I was lucky to be on shift during the time Armadillo successfully performed the first of the two horizontal translations required to win the prize. Even though Armadillo didn’t win the prize, I was impressed by the fact that Armadillo—which isn’t even a true company, but rather a group of friends working towards a common goal—was able to set their eyes on such an impressive task, and to perform so well. It taught me that I didn’t need to have a formal title or a job in the world’s best company to make a big difference.

After the Cup, the semester got more exiting after the announcement of the Google Lunar X PRIZE. There’s a race back to the Moon? And students can participate? I decided that I also wanted to be part of the race, and I am in the process of making this work. During my last semester at UMD, I convinced my Aerospace professor to do a Google Lunar X PRIZE feasibility study. I was the only undergraduate student on the team, which was made up of 3 Americans, 2 Latinos, 1 Indian, and 1 Italian. We had so much fun with the project that in the 2 minutes after our final presentation, we decided that we were going to make this work and that UMD needed to be registered as an official team. We are currently working on the next steps towards that goal, which are convincing University administration and looking for funding.

I graduated in December 2007, and now I am working for the Orbital Sciences Corporation as a System Engineer for the Space System Groups. I am very excited to working for Orbital for many reasons, especially because it is one of the four companies selected as finalist for the COTS proposal.

I’m about as biased as can possibly be in this specific case, but I think that people like Diana who come into this industry from non-traditional backgrounds have an enormous amount to contribute. Many of them, like Diana, have sacrificed much and worked themselves incredibly hard to get to where they are, and, once they’ve found a spot in the industry, they can approach problems with an enthusiasm and a sense of creativity that all of us would envy. I’m very glad that the X PRIZE Foundation among many others, can help encourage this kind of participation in the industry I love.

Last week, I attended a Martin Luther King Day event at the National Science Foundation put on by a group called ARTSI—Advancing Robotics Technology for Societal Impact [17]. This organization tries to reach out to underrepresented populations, especially African-Americans, to get them interested and involved in Robotics. The highlight of the presentation was when three young women—two first-years and one second-year students—at Spelman College [18] demonstrated some dancing robots. Programmed after only a few months of instruction, these robots we side projects created after the College had participated in (and received awards in) a robotics competition called RoboCup [19].

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As they danced [20], they demonstrated that students can find something that is fun and intellectually challenging in highly technical fields regardless of their background—and that stimulating projects early in an educational career can help bring new minds and fresh opinions into any industry. I hope that these young women and their peers at Spelman and other colleges and universities continue to get involved in these kinds of competitions—including the ones offered by the X PRIZE Foundation.