“Agency leaders have understood that NASA’s greatest asset is its workforce, and much effort has gone into attracting, retaining, and developing the dynamic and diverse workforce needed to support our important aeronautics and space exploration missions.” We worked a lot with SpaceX and Elon Musk before many people knew what SpaceX was.” On how NASA has changed over the years: We have always taken cargo and astronauts to the International Space Station on a government-owned vehicle, and I was one of the lawyers who helped figure out how to develop a commercial operator rather than one by the government. ![]() “Before we put human beings on a commercial vehicle, we put cargo on a commercial vehicle. That was a hard day to lose our colleagues and our American heroes.” On the most exciting thing she’s worked on: I did not realize how fast I was driving when I traveled to NASA headquarters to handle the immediate legal issues because I was crying all the way to the office. The only shuttle launch that I saw in person was that last mission for Columbia, STS-101. “I was at home on a Saturday morning, on February 1, 2003, expecting to receive a message that the Columbia shuttle had landed safely, when calls began to come in informing to me that Columbia did not land on time. There are some communities where you can go and you can see the how they've modified their name after we talked with the owners.” On her most challenging work day: There were some businesses near NASA that called themselves the NASA barber shop, and there were people who would think that was actually NASA running the barber shop and it wasn't. But there are some things that you maybe don’t want NASA's name on, as it’s our intellectual property. “The NASA brand is very famous, and people love to put NASA on things. After the Apollo crash, we had legislation pass that allows us to let the astronauts have some of those mementos.” On the weirdest cases she’s worked on: ![]() “When you work for the government like we do, the equipment and supplies belong to the government. On one of the most meaningful cases she’s worked on: Before taking the unknown leap into space law, she was a practicing attorney in Washington, D.C. Though she was appointed to the role in 2014, Thompson-King has been at NASA for-wait for it-34 years, when she started in the office of Chief Counsel at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Sumara Thompson-King is NASA’s chief legal officer, overseeing a team of attorneys responsible for all aspects of NASA's legal affairs worldwide-basically, like an in-house law firm. And when that doesn't help, I do kickboxing.” “We respond to a lot of high-stress situations, so we practice a lot. Then, we’ll sit down and identify all scenarios that we think that we will face and systematically figure out which ones are likely enough for us to test.” On how she stays calm: We’ll have people playing crew members-maybe somebody's hurt, maybe nobody is hurt, maybe somebody is unconscious. We do training simulations to make sure that we can get them if there's a rescue or emergency. Those are all things we practice and plan for. ![]() There could be an event that would initiate an emergency or cause astronauts to abort the spacecraft and fall back to Earth. “An emergency landing is basically when the pods land somewhere that we were not expecting at a time that we are not expecting. Air Force and Navy) are waiting (for anywhere from 8 to 25 days) on a large Naval ship to bring them back to land. If all goes according to plan, capsules land in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Diego, where Jones and her team (along with crew from the U.S. Capsules-either manned or unmanned-catapult to the earth at 27,000 miles per hour before parachutes slow them down to 20 mph about 5 miles from the water's surface. As the director of landing and recovery at NASA, Melissa Jones is responsible for leading a team of 100 that retrieves capsules returning to Earth.
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