This was an excellent podcast! Having spent my career in aerospace engineering, and having prepared and taught STEM curricula to all ages, I can tell by your descriptions and the comments by the participants, that the NASA S.U.I.T.S. program is doing an excellent job of preparing its students for real-world industry. At the time of my retirement eight years ago many of the product development methods mentioned were just coming into use. This podcast brought me back to those days. Even though my initial impressions of those methods, at the time, were met with a healthy dose of skepticism, I do still think it is important for new engineers to be familiar with the processes and terms - if only to be fluent in the language and know of their limitations. Your podcast also brought back fond memories of informal teaching and makes me yearn to do more.
It was also nice to hear your impressions of Johnson Space Center. I was fortunate to have a behind-the-scenes tour of the facilities by a friend who worked in Mission Control several years ago. I liked your description of experiencing both the space past and the future simultaneously. That is exactly the way I felt when I was there, but hadn't put into words like you did.
Being a life-long space art enthusiast, I too was amazed by Robert McCall's mural in the Olin Teague auditorium lobby. I must have attempted a half a dozed walking panorama photos to try to get the whole mural into a single photo!
Again, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this podcast. It has been a while since I had seen any newsletter posts from you. (I understand the size of your family had increased.) But, oddly enough, I was not aware of your podcast. I will have to make a point of going back to listen to the archives.
Finally, a question ... What is the origin/meaning of the team name, "CosmoShox"?
Thank you so much for the kind words! I’m glad you enjoyed the episode :) This one was totally different than any other one I’ve recorded and I hope to do more like this one in the future. I also tried to get so many pics of the mural, none do it justice.
We’ve definitely been busy, our daughter is almost two now, so there’s never a dull moment in our house lol.
I wish I’d explained what CosmoShox meant, I’ll have to give some clarification in the next episode. Wichita State’s mascot is called WuShock, a kinda creepy shock of wheat with a face lol. Just google WuShock haha. So the CosmoShox is a plan on the shock of the mascot, we’re also called Shockers, so the team decided on that play of words a few years back. Send me an email/dm with your address and I’ll pop some stickers in the mail for you, thanks for listening!
John,
This was an excellent podcast! Having spent my career in aerospace engineering, and having prepared and taught STEM curricula to all ages, I can tell by your descriptions and the comments by the participants, that the NASA S.U.I.T.S. program is doing an excellent job of preparing its students for real-world industry. At the time of my retirement eight years ago many of the product development methods mentioned were just coming into use. This podcast brought me back to those days. Even though my initial impressions of those methods, at the time, were met with a healthy dose of skepticism, I do still think it is important for new engineers to be familiar with the processes and terms - if only to be fluent in the language and know of their limitations. Your podcast also brought back fond memories of informal teaching and makes me yearn to do more.
It was also nice to hear your impressions of Johnson Space Center. I was fortunate to have a behind-the-scenes tour of the facilities by a friend who worked in Mission Control several years ago. I liked your description of experiencing both the space past and the future simultaneously. That is exactly the way I felt when I was there, but hadn't put into words like you did.
Being a life-long space art enthusiast, I too was amazed by Robert McCall's mural in the Olin Teague auditorium lobby. I must have attempted a half a dozed walking panorama photos to try to get the whole mural into a single photo!
Again, I thoroughly enjoyed listening to this podcast. It has been a while since I had seen any newsletter posts from you. (I understand the size of your family had increased.) But, oddly enough, I was not aware of your podcast. I will have to make a point of going back to listen to the archives.
Finally, a question ... What is the origin/meaning of the team name, "CosmoShox"?
Thank you so much for the kind words! I’m glad you enjoyed the episode :) This one was totally different than any other one I’ve recorded and I hope to do more like this one in the future. I also tried to get so many pics of the mural, none do it justice.
We’ve definitely been busy, our daughter is almost two now, so there’s never a dull moment in our house lol.
I wish I’d explained what CosmoShox meant, I’ll have to give some clarification in the next episode. Wichita State’s mascot is called WuShock, a kinda creepy shock of wheat with a face lol. Just google WuShock haha. So the CosmoShox is a plan on the shock of the mascot, we’re also called Shockers, so the team decided on that play of words a few years back. Send me an email/dm with your address and I’ll pop some stickers in the mail for you, thanks for listening!