I was completely blown away. I ran to the library and read every book on the space program, even ones I could not understand and ones published before there was anything man-made on the Moon. I built model rockets and model planes. I took greater appreciation of the ability to watch space shuttle launches from my front porch in Central Florida. I grabbed everyone within earshot to tell about the greatest adventure of mankind.

My wonder and exhilaration for space exploration has not diminished, but has grown and prospered through the years. I am now a graduate student working on liquid propulsion, working towards the goal of placing my own footprints on the surface of the Moon and turning upwards to see the absolute beauty of our planet Earth.

So the rest, as they say, is history: putting in the work in the public schools of Los Angeles to qualify for college, the eight years at the University of Southern California earning, respectively, BS and MS degrees in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, the ultimate landing at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and the subsequent nearly 35-year career there.

The picture shows me on the left at my 30th anniversary at JPL in April 2005 with the current JPL Director Dr. Charles Elachi.

However, growing up in Europe was a real handicap in that days for a young boy who wanted to become an astronaut. Everybody whom I asked told me that one had to be American or Russian citizen to become an astronaut. But I did not give up, lent every book about the moon, the stars and rocket science from the public library, and at the age of ten I found out that I did not just wanted to travel in a starship. Much more I wanted to understand how to build one. Thus, I decided that engineer would be the suitable profession for me. Later on I could still become an astronaut. To be honest, Montgomery Scott was always much more a hero to me than James T. Kirk.

Most of my teachers did never believe that I would ever make it. But since I had an aim, I knew how to reach it. I achieved a degree in aerospace engineering and after a 16 year intermezzo in the power plant business I was able to get a position in the largest Swiss space company, where I am still employed today. Now everybody tells me that I am too old to become an astronaut. But I still have my membership card to the public library - and I never give up my dreams.

When I was eight, I played building my own spaceships and small prototypes, which reach only a couple of meters. But I think this is the kind of spirit you need to keep through all you life. And never forget the goals you want to reach.

The truth is that every time I look at the night sky or the Moon, the same feelings come into play.

I begun my professional career in technology, but never forgetting what my aim was, and the first real step into space was done latter in 2005, when I created NanoEspacio, with the clear intention to find ways to make it possible.

I don't know what made me a math/science geek; neither of my parents went beyond high school (my Dad, a Navy Chief, didn't actually finish high school). But somehow, my family believed in me. They kept me supplied with Lincoln Logs and Erector Sets and chemistry sets; my uncle, a lumberjack, gave me a little paperback book called a "Ready Reckoner," that was backwoods Maine's answer to the Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. And from things like that, I found that math and science were tools that (1) helped me tell science from fiction and (2) helped me figure out how fiction could be turned into science.

The tipping point may have been my high school calculus and physics teachers, B. G. Holman and Mary Emerson ("Emmy-Poo," but NOT to her face!). By the time they got through with me, I was hopelessly in love with math and physics, and that hasn't changed in 43 years!

So Heinlein showed me what could happen, my family thought that I could make it happen, and B. G. and Emmy-Poo started to show me how to make it happen. God bless 'em all!

With that my involvement grew through the Redstone, Jupiter, Pershing, Saturn, Shuttle, and Space Station programs involvements. My association with the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center continued after my retirement in 1986 and joining the faculty of the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

William W. Vaughan, Ph.D. University of Alabama in Huntsville

In August 1977 the prototype shuttle Enterprise began glide tests where it separated from a Boeing 747 and gradually descended back to Earth. I was entering high school and began writing term papers on topics that included future Space Shuttle operations and space colonies. I began reading books by Isaac Asimov (I, Robot; David Starr, Space Ranger; Earth Is Room Enough; Nine Tomorrows; The Bicentennial Man), Stewart Brand (Space Colonies) and Gerard K. O’Neil (The High Frontier).

The concept of humans traveling regularly to, and living in space was fascinating. I knew then that aerospace science and engineering were to be my future.

The catalyst was my sixth grade field trip to the Challenger Center at Wheeling-Jesuit University, where we participated in a mock mission tailored to an entire class's participation. So that summer after sixth grade I found myself at Space Camp in Titusville, Florida in the August heat saturated with moisture, unsure of what to expect. The training simulators, lectures on space history, and trips to Kennedy Space Center had already led me to forget that I had never lived away from family for so long, by the time my team embarked on our simulated missions. Compared to the class activity in West Virginia and with what I had learned all week, this was the real deal.

For the last mission I got to be flight director in mission control. There was something about the whole environment; the brightly lit buttons, the script, and the screens that struck a sense of excitement and importance. Sitting in front of the consule labeled flight director, communicating through my head set with the other team members, and watching our mission develop was just so invigorating. There was no doubt in my mind. I knew this would have to be a significant part of my life.

I remember practicing baseball in south Huntsville and all of the sudden the ground started shaking (during an engine test). I also remember being at home and things rattling off the shelf and Mom running to grab them. In addition, my Dad at the time was responsible for some of the Army's testing on Redstone Arsenal and believe it or not there was as much Army missile/rocket motor testing on the Arsenal as there was at MSFC but obviously the motors were a lot smaller. Anyway, back then a missile test firing down a test range was a family affair. All the folks who worked together in the block house would invite their families out and we would bring picnic food and set up (safely) where we could see the missile leave the launch platform and watch, with much anticipation, the few seconds trajectory.

Anyway, I explored a few other fields of study before going off to college but decided on engineering mainly because of my experience growing up in Huntsville.

Fortunately, I was gifted with skills in both Math and Science and particularly liked Physics. I was also captivated by Manned Spaceflight. This may be a bit rare, as I don’t remember Sputnik, or Mercury, or Gemini. I do remember (some) Moon Landing operations and watching history on my Grandparents small B&W – it must have been a Sunday that we were visiting. My career formative years were during the “first Gap’ in U.S. Spaceflight so that wasn’t it. Yet when time came to select a university, I rejected the University of Illinois and entered Parks College of S. Louis University convinced that if I completed my degree, I would be working Manned Spaceflight.

So, When Did I know? It seems I have known perhaps since grade school that Space Flight was part of my plan. Certainly that was the plan in late High School. Then a re-direction to military aircraft and a lot of commercial flight test support at Irvin. I have no regrets; I have made friends all along the way and have enjoyed the journey. Eventually this young lad, only one generation from the farms of Illinois made it to Manned Spaceflight and is actively working the Parachute and Airbag programs for Orion. To date, the parachute program has completed 14 major development tests and the airbag program a similar number (between 2 teams). Both have many additional tests in the coming months.

So, in summary, looking back, my career has taken a long and sweeping curve stopping at a number of points, all of those exciting and challenging. Being only about half way done, I cannot project the balance of what those curves will be, but I am sure that they will be exciting. It seems that proficiency in Science and Math has given me a great career, provided our family with a comfortable standard of living (even in Orange County) and secured a relatively stable future. I wish we could communicate this to today’s youth!

I had my first flight in a Cessna 172 at the age of three, which I still vividly remember to this day.

I have been fascinated with airplanes as far back as I can remember, but I made the decision to become an aeronautical engineer when I was nine years old.

To this day I am just as awestruck with flight as I was when I was a child.

Carolyn M. Smith

From the ceiling of my bedroom was hung a large flock of my model airplanes. Spring and summer days were spent launching rockets and then chasing them down in the surrounding corn fields. On July 20, 1969 I was glued to the TV and for a while I wanted to be an astronaut too.

When it came time to think about college, I applied to only one university, the one with the best aero school in my home state of Indiana, Purdue. So it is no wonder that as I enter my 24th year as an aeronautical engineer, I still love every minute of it.

When did I know? I guess you could say that I was born with a prescient knowledge of it. I had no big epiphany; I was just made that way. I have always known!

I am extremely pleased that Sheffield Hallam University name has been mentioned while I was awarded the Cayley Award 2003 on 100 years of Aviation.

Also I was awarded PRIDE OF BOEING Award in 2005 by Boeing IRC Group for my contribution in 777-300ER Program at Boeing,Everett,Washington.

I am extremely thankful to Royal Aeronautical Society ,London and entire team of School of Engineering, Sheffiled Hallam University for helping me with Professional Career and bringing me in the limelight of Aerospace Industry in Europe and USA.

At SHU we developed excellent presentation skills, program management skills which are very important in the Engineering Management. Besides it helped us to develop the skill of completing the task within stipulated time which is very important in any industry to be successful in career. It also helped us in developing our planning skills which is so very important when we go to lead team in our Aerospace group. It really helped me to develop my leadership skill which is very helpful for me when I lead team of Engineers in my concern.

I have been able to achieve my Chartered Engineering with EC(UK) in association with Royal Aeronautical Society and also helped me to attain Chartered Scientist with Science Council(UK) due to the MSc program from SHU.MSc Advance Engineering program is excellent course for Engineers to develop them professional skills in there career. It has all ingredient developing your software design skills with extremely dedicated and talented faculty .Besides working on Finite Element Modeling skills is extremely useful from industry point of view. Product design team helps you in developing and coming with new ideas and concept. Project Management skills as part of program is extremely useful part of the course. Materials Engineering division is already world class being run by extremely outstanding Professors.

I had the challenging task of developing and testing Landing Gear and steering system for Dreamliner 787 Aircraft which was extremely challenging since it was totally new concept and I had to develop and test the new structure. Also at Boeing I have been involved with 777-200 LR which has turned out to be longest distance flying aircraft in the world. I have been involved with modeling & testing of interiors for 777-200LR/ER, 767,747,737 Aircrafts which were extremely time sensitive. Working with various aircraft new commodities is always challenge of its own kind,Also I enjoyed that besides developing and testing I had been able to successfully guide and help other Boeing Engineers on such complex design of 787 Aircrafts and help them to complete complex projects within time deadline has been extremely satisfying experience in my career. Working with new aircraft commodities is always a challenge because you have nothing similar to compare with. It has been excellent experience working with Boeing, one of the leading Aircraft manufacturers of the world. In last couple of years I have been working with latest Boeing programs which have been really satisfying for me from Professional Career point of view especially which involves new Finite Element Modeling and load generation from the models.Besides I have been also doing active flying in my Professional career.

Then in rapid succession, Alan Shepard flew suborbital on Freedom 7, Gus Grissom flew suborbital in Liberty Bell 7 and (after many delays) John Glenn finally made it into orbit in Friendship 7.

It was a Tuesday in February 1962 when John Glenn finally was able to launch. It was snowing hard in the New York area and schools were closed, so I spent the day inside watching television coverage of John Glenn's Flight.

I was hooked for life and I have spent the past 26 years working in Technical and Administrative jobs on the Space Shuttle and Space Station Programs.

He introduced me to Barry and I gave him a hug. Barry used to be my grandmother's flying partner. He asked me if I wanted to see the airplane, and he took me up for about a half hour. He even gave me my first flying lesson, no charge.

The first time I flew in that plane I was 4 years old. We went up from Redlands to Big Bear. I remember it clearly. I was seat-belted to my dad's lap. My mom and 2 little brothers were in the back. The sun was shining brightly and the snow on the ground was a few days old. A real delight. We ate breakfast at a cute little place up there. I don't remember anything else about the day except that when it was time to go back, we had to drive home. I was so sad, and I never knew why we couldn't fly home.

One day in our Aerodynamics course, at UCIrvine, Dr. Liebeck told us about the runway at Big Bear. It's short, and on a hot afternoon, density at that altitude is much less than at sea level. Stall speed is higher, so on a short runway with more than four people in a 4-seater... the memories came back and what a great feeling to know that my grandmother had planned the whole trip. Her car was in Big Bear so we could drive home. Later, she had my mom drive back up with her so she could fly her plane back to Redlands and my mom could take the car. All of these memories are so clear. I just wish I could remember that restaurant more clearly.

I am now an acoustics engineer at Boeing Phantom Works, the advanced research and development unit for Boeing. I still want to fly and to become an astronaut. I think it will take another ten years to achieve all of my goals, but I know that a job like this can take me anywhere I want to go.

The Summer of 1972 is when I knew for sure. I was seven years old, and our family took a trip out east to visit several places that would inspire me to no end. We visited the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL, where I saw the huge Saturn V on its side and walked on a simulated lunar surface. We saw the Blue Angels, then flying the F-4 (built in my hometown of St. Louis) at their NAS Pensacola home. Then we went to Kennedy Space Center, where we saw the Apollo 17 Saturn V being stacked in the Vehicle Assembly Building. When Apollo 17 launched that December, I remember thinking how cool it was that I saw that very rocket with my own eyes coming together in that huge, huge buidling!

If all that were not enough, we stopped by the USAF Museum in Dayton, OH on the way home. There I saw for the first time the XB-70 and a film about its history. I was completely enthralled by this fast jet.

I came home from this trip so excited by airplanes and the Saturn V that I was oozing desire for a future somewhere in the aerospace world. Thankfully, after many years of study that culminated in BS and MS engineering degrees, I found myself celebrating 20 years of service with The Boeing Company in 2007.

The Summer of '72. That's when I knew.

I have vague memories of watching a Gemini launch on TV (I was 5). I have idyllic memories of Santa Claus, Apollo 8 and the reading of Genesis on Christmas 1998. I remember staying up late to see Neil and Buzz. I remember seeing Saturn for the first time early one morning in my 2 inch Tasco telescope - 4 am up by myself as a kid in the backyard. I remember summer camping with that little telescope, seeing a total solar eclipse in 1972 and listening to Carly Simon sing about it.

[Note: the toroidal space station image is not mine - it is someone else's and only represents memories for me - from many kid's books.]

A bigger "wow" moment happened in December, 1968, when the Apollo 8 mission launched on the most beautiful, big rocket I had ever seen. I can recall Christmas Eve that year as if it were yesterday. I came out of church services with my parents and we discovered that our car had a flat tire. While my Dad worked to fix the tire, I sat in the car staring at a beautiful moon and starry sky while listening to the crew as they orbited that same moon and read from Genesis. Then came the biggest "wow" moment: I bugged my parents incessantly to take me to Florida to see a launch, so we headed off in our car from Colorado to Florida in July, 1971, with the intent to see the launch of Apollo 15.

We kicked around for a few days at beach resorts, then headed for Titusville before dawn on July 25. We found a place to park our car on the Banana river (that car became our uncomfortable hotel that night) and counted down the hours until the launch the next morning. July 26 dawned clear and hot and Apollo 15 slowly rumbled off the pad right on time. I could not believe the sound when it reached us across the river! I snapped pictures with my little Instamatic and trembled with emotion, tears running down my cheeks. Well, that sealed it - I had to work in the space program, so off I went two years later to college to major in engineering. I've had many more "wow" moments in my career (like being on the Titan launch team for the Cassini mission) and still view our exploits in space with childlike wonder and delight. I work hard now to pass that feeling on to future generations.

In 1984, I made it to the US as an exchange student via a French university and got a summer job at the Johnson Space Center - something for which I will be eternally grateful. After adding a MSEE to my engineering degree I spent wonderful years working with the first Spacelab Life Sciences mission, and then with other projects.

The US Space Program gave me my dreams and motivated me to do extroardinary things. Still today, I draw strength and inspiration from it.

b) During WWII, I was in Italy, a 17-year-old first sergeant in the infantry. I remember trudging down a muddy road, looking up at a squadron of B-24s, and saying to myself,"Why am I down here and not up there"? Once back in the U.S. I took advantage of the GI Bill, and learned to fly and enrolled in the Aeronautical Engineering School at Georgia Tech. The rest is history.

So there you are. A grade school dare plus a muddy road in Italy, that's what got me started.

But in the middle of that airplane modeling history I got into radio-controlled boat model design and construction. I developed and raced a sailboat model with an airplane-type “wingsail” designed from data Coe Wescott and I obtained by tests in a University of Washington wind tunnel. Thirty-some years later the U.S. America’s Cup contender, the “Stars and Stripes,” with a wingsail very similar to ours, beat New Zealand for the championship.

Another Boeing engineer, Leroy Perkins, and I invented an electromechanical digital decoder and memory for a model fireboat we were building, took the model to England in 1960, and won an international championship with it. Meanwhile, in the middle of my forty-year career with Boeing (mostly in engineering management) we were developing the BOMARC air defense missile, using vacuum tubes (The transistor had just been invented, and was not in production yet). The bean counters said it was going to require 350 tubes to do a vital part of the missile control job that my partner and I had done on the model fireboat with a single gadget the size of your fist. So we sold our patent rights to The Boeing Company. I was in charge of the development of the Boeing version of the device and was getting paid a salary for working on our “toy boat” invention. Sweet.

I retired from Boeing 28 years ago, and am still an engineer at heart.

So aviation was a big part of my life. And I naturally decided, before my 18, to work for aircraft building...at ONERA, the French Aerospace Lab, that could alow to "touch" a various type of design. Achieving my high degree in mechanical engineering at 24, I entered...ONERA!! in the Aeroelasticity and Structural Dynamics Dpt where I am still working so far :)

Nevertheless, the grace and beauty of flight has always been with me - from designing and building my own model airplanes, rockets, and even small hot air balloons as a kid to my participation in AIAA as an adult, eventhough I work in the automotive industry - and will be forever.

Thankfully, my parents fostered my early interest in planes and spaceships, and Dad sent me half-way around the world to college at Texas A&M University to major in Aerospace Engineering. Since then, I have always worked in Aerospace.

It is inspiring to see so many countries and companies around the world investing in aviation and space technology, for the greater good. Aerospace has tremendous potential to bring the world together in more ways than we can presently forecast and comprehend.

I knew right then and there that I HAD to be involved with America’s space program. I never stopped believing that.

One night when I was five, my father took us outside and I saw Echo-1A in orbit. I asked a lot of questions, and grasped some sense of how far up it was and what "orbit" was. Incredible.

Then animals went up. Then Shepard went up. Then Glenn. Then the whole space program. And in my lifetime we achieved the ever-dreamed-about: we stepped on another heavenly body - the Moon.

I'm trying to help get us to Mars. The ability is there, but unfortunately I will probably die before we have the political will.

During my career, through research and direct support, I was able to contribute to the Apollo Program, the Viking Program, the Space Shuttle, the Space Station, and other national space programs. In addition, I was a manager of research on aircraft engines. Some very exciting work was activity related to the resolution of various flight anomalies.

My career with NASA was successful and I retired as a division chief, then I worked on national programs as an employee of MRJ, Inc. I was active in the AIAA. I served on technical committees, chairman of a technical committee, then I served as a director technical. I was honored with the coveted grade of Fellow. I cannot imagine a more exciting, satisfying career than mine in the aerospace profession.

Or does it? Four decades later, I count as unmerited blessings the many opportunities I have been given to contribute to the research, development and application of aerospace sciences to hypersonics, wind tunnels, parachutes, rocket motors and fire. And beyond the technical and programmatic blessings are the life-long friendships with the people of the aerospace community. AIAA makes available many ways for me to stay in touch with these dear people.

A Fellows Dinner several years ago put an exclamation point on the "people blessings" aspect of my career in aerospace. As we sat down to dinner, I introduced myself to the distinguished gentleman on my left. He told me his name was Scott Crossfield.

There were model planes and spaceships (one of my favorites was the moon buggy from 2001: A Space Odyssey) along with some Estes model rockets that reinforced my interest.

I didn't realize at the time that my first model rockets were based on JPL's first Army rockets until I arrived at JPL in the summer of 1975 after my sophomore year of college and saw the mock-ups of the Corporal and Sergeant missiles right outside the building where I worked. Clearly I had found my way to where I needed to be. Despite straying from aerospace for a short period (doing engineering design and simulation programming for Fluor Corp.) I couldn't resist the calling and have stopped trying to. I've been at JPL for 23 years and expect to retire from here. I now try to inspire the next generation of aerospace engineers - the photo is me with a group of students who I sponsored for a summer project a couple years ago.

Later, in January 1986, I was at school and saw live on TV the Challenger accident. Although tragic and shocking, this event was deeply inspiring and moving.

Finally, in July 1989, I was totally amazed by the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the Moon landing at the National Air and Space Museum and from then on, I definitely knew that I wanted spaceflight to be part of my life.

Then on to science fairs, and supportive chemistry and physics teachers. My mother helped me get a scholarship to Iowa State in Aerospace engineering, supporting me in my quest for space exploration, even though her religion taught that such was damnable folly. Perhaps she knew my poor eyesight and a rapidly shrinking aerospace market would keep me planted firmly on Earth when I graduated with a BS in 1970.

The security of a steady job and my love of intellectual property law has kept me from space exploration from then until now. With the possibility of finding a home for new manufacturing technologies in ISRU, I have joined Amalgam Industries, which my friend Bob Wigger formed to attract capital, talent and seed technologies that work together to create new markets and industries. Amalgam expects to grow rapidly from a startup to a major player in the military, space, consumer, and infrastructure markets with an exciting and profitable amalgamation of these resources. Stay tuned!

But the moment I truly knew came when I was in kindergarten. We were going to start learning about the solar system, and the teacher hung a big poster of the space shuttle on the wall. I couldn't stop looking at those astronauts at work...and I knew.

I turned 13 that year. I had followed NASA's missions closely since third grade and watched them all on TV. I kept articles from the newspaper on the Gemini missions. I had a Revelle model of Gemini in my room and learned about the systems and knew the names of the astronauts on each mission. I was a space buff as I became a teenager.

But, 1968 had much tragedy coming out of our TV. The war in Vietnam was pulling the country apart with daily reports of the numbers killed and widespread protests. One April morning Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination was reported. And then Bobby Kennedy was killed. There were riots in Chicago at the Democratic Party convention where the police beat protestors sending dozens to hospitals. I was seeing so much destruction and dissention and it was all so disheartening.

And then there was Christmas. NASA made the first human space flight around the moon: Apollo 8. The huge Saturn V rocket launched three men from the earth to circle the moon. I remember that Christmas Eve we had a big family get together and we watched on a new color TV as the Apollo 8 crew read from Genesis as we saw a small blue and white globe through their window. Except for those 3 men, all of humanity was there on the blue and white globe. With that perspective of Earth, I wondered, why all the destruction and dissention in such a beautiful, fragile place. It was an inspired moment in life that became an epiphany.

In 1968, I knew I wanted to be a part of the team that works together to explore space. I had seen enough killing and destruction. I was committed to being on the team to explore space. I would do work that inspired people to work together constructively exploring our universe.

Around the same time I became a fan of "Star Wars" and "the Six Million Dollar Man", both of which, of course, have strong space themes. Shortly thereafter I started building my own space models. By 1981 I was 9, and I distinctly remember getting up early in the morning to watch the first launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia. I was hooked!

Since that time I have been truly blessed at Boeing having hired in to the NASA High Speed Civil Transport program, and then moving on to the Sonic Cruiser, and 787 (where I am in management in Flight Test). Along the way I also supported other very interesting projects including the Russian Regional Jet program, and the Silent Aircraft Initiative.

Outside of designing airplanes however, one of the most fascinating experiences I cannot stop talking about was the two years I worked with NASA measuring F-18 Sonic Booms at NASA Dryden as part of the PARTNER (http://web.mit.edu/aeroastro/partner/index.html) program.

There is probably no more inspirational place I can think of than NASA Dryden/Edwards Air Force Base, while testing there we were frequently treated with F-22, V-22, B1, B52, and other incredible displays ("there is an airshow every day").

In 1946, my fellow engineering students and I gathered in front of the men's dormitory at New Mexico A & M to look across the Organ Mountains at the white, twisting vapor trails of the initial launches of captured German V-2 rockets from the White Sands Proving Ground, and I was hooked on the field of rocketry. I started working as a part-time student employee in the college's Physical Science Laboratory in the spring of 1947 to reduce telemetry data from those V-2 launches at a wage of 65 cents an hour, which was top student pay on the campus in those days.

Then, in the spring of 1952, I attended an inspiring lecture on "The Mars Project" by Dr. Wernher von Braun at the Branigan Memorial Library in Las Cruces, NM. I was so entranced that I joined the New Mexico-West Texas Section of the American Rocket Society that evening and have been a member of the ARS and its successor, the AIAA, ever since.

Those three experiences were the main incidents that started and kept on track my 61-year career in the aerospace field, thus far, and it's not over yet.

My desire to be a pilot budded in my pre-school years. My grandfather, an Imperial Japanese Army cavalry officer and accomplished equestrian, was my primer for speed (of a stallion running) and altitude (of riding saddle). The military was just taking up aeroplanes as the obvious future weapon system. Also, listening earnestly to my mother’s side grandfather, an admiral, and uncle, a navy captain, my “speed and altitude” notion quickly heightened to a determined kid’s fancy of becoming a navy fighter pilot.

Reaching middle school, I signed up for the school glider club, which operated a ground-skimming Primary class glider. But the first-year students were allowed only to crew, pulling the bungee cord to launch the upper-class member manned glider. So I switched to judo club to “train” as a warrior — a step toward fighter pilot. The war came to an end while I was in my second year studying hard for the naval academy entrance exam. I guess I escaped becoming a kamikaze pilot.

The only way I could get into aviation then was to go to America. I gained a four-year tuition and board scholarship to Michigan Tech and got my engineering degree loaded with fluid- and thermo-dynamics. The Naval Air Test Center Patuxent River (MD) was waiting for me with my dream job of a GS-5 flight test engineer. I stood on the Flight Test Division’s flight line — with my heart pounding — looking up at the pointed nose of the F8U Crusader, which test pilot, later astronaut, John Glen had just flown across the continental U.S. to establish a speed record. “I am so-o-o close to my ‘speed & altitude’ goal!” That began the ten years of my continuously exciting flight testing career. I tested and got to fly Navy’s new experimental and prototype aircraft — all aboard aircraft carriers. I even had chance to invent new carrier approach and landing systems, which are now operational aboard carriers across the world.

I earned my FAA Commercial Pilot and Certified Flight Instructor ratings and even owned my own airplanes. The ‘speed & altitude’ Japanese kid was now an American ‘free enterprise’ pilot. I joined the ranks of test pilots as a graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School.

My fortunate pursuit of aviation continued into Washington as I got myself reassigned in 1967 to the newly established Research & Technology Group of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics turned Naval Air Systems Command — for the rest of the 38-year service to the Naval aviation. By the time I retired from my formal aviation career, I had been selected to the SES (Senior Executive Service), a “Flag rank” as the military would call it. I guess I caught up with my grandfathers, ‘where’ my dream to go ‘fast and high’ started.

After a few years of college, I began to see how my love of math and physics could contribute to the Space Program, and in fact, worked in one of von Braun's labs at Huntsville during summers while in graduate school. My career began at Boeing working on NASA materials science in microgravity contracts. Although I moved to DoD when those contracts ended, I have continued to work areas that involve space science and systems to the present. While I have had many other mentors who have helped and inspired me during college and afterward, I remember that lecture by Dr. von Braun as the point where I embarked on my aerospace career.

And that was it. Soon after, I got my first kit of Legos and started building my own models of crude spaceships.

Obsessed with space and flying into my early teens, I had a very vivid dream of a personal flying craft powered by a small jet engine. I did lots of research on jet engines, and my grandfather, in complete coincidence, had sent me a book by Pratt & Whitney on how jet engines work. So I built one of my own, which almost worked except for a few minor challenges that were financially difficult to solve on a $10 weekly allowance. Nonetheless, I was about 12 when I knew that wanted to be an aerospace engineer.

In my mid-teens, I got into flying radio-controlled (RC) model airplanes and began building an ultralight aircraft of my own design even though I had never piloted an aircraft. It was about that time I had the opportunity to fly and pilot an ultralight over the deserts east of San Diego. I started taking ultralight flying lessons and eventually soloed. Then it was off to college to study aerospace engineering.

During my college years I designed and flew several RC aircraft. I focused my interest in propulsion systems and advanced space travel, with the ultimate goal of making the technology behind the scene in the movie I saw when I was 6 become real.

Since then, my professional career has involved jet engine design, advanced air-breathing propulsion concepts, and rocket engine performance for space launch systems. I'm extremely lucky that I have seen over three dozen space launches from a "mission-control" perspective, watching my engine work as it flies from the bonds of earth.

I'm very fortunate in that I feel I could write a "When Did You Know?" story for each day that I've ever come to work.