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Asked by Pits Mcgee to Simon, Alex, Andrew, Delma, Julia on 6 Dec 2015. This question was also asked by lolpizza, rover101, chloe, itz harry, 765nch25, 747nch25, crazzzzzzzzyyyy, operation investigation, AstridSmall, luke.
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Andrew Winnard answered on 6 Dec 2015:
Squeak! This is Monkonaut Sam answering – doing my bit to help Andrew with all of the awesome questions you’ve been sending!
Andrew’s job can be hard work, but I know he enjoys it. I was reading part of his PhD thesis recently and it seemed to have lots of complicated maths in it (much too tricky for monkonauts!) but he says it makes sense to him. His PhD studies even meant that we got to take a trip to Florida and Kennedy Space Center earlier this year so that he could do a talk all about FRED, and that was definitely fun for both him and me. We got to have lunch with a human astronaut (luckily they had really nice bananas for me to eat!) and we got to go on a bus all around the sites where they’ve launched rockets and space shuttles from, including the one where humans first left from when they went to the Moon!
When Andrew finishes his PhD, he is hoping to be come a university lecturer so that he can pass on all the things he’s learnt to his students – maybe you’ll even end up in one of his classes one day!
Thank you for sending us a question, and keep them coming in!
#monkonaut
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Alexander Finch answered on 6 Dec 2015:
Yes! Being an engineer – both building satellites in the UK or fixing experiments in Antarctica – is satisfying and interesting. You get to solve problems which are different and varied every day – it’s never the same thing twice, which is great. You need a sense of curiosity to enjoy it, but everyone has that! The feeling of “creating” things can’t be beaten by any job (except perhaps being an astronaut!)
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Julia Attias answered on 7 Dec 2015:
Hey @364nch28, @948nch28, @844nch28, @568nch28, @jacktye, @765nch25, @747nch25,
In general a PhD is hard – that’s why I wanted to do it! But there are definitely aspects of it I enjoy! I very much enjoy overcoming challenges – I have always been motivated by trying to do things that don’t seem possible.
I also enjoy it when I get to go to The European Astronaut Centre in Cologne and sit in on a live conference call to the space station!
I enjoy finding out my data and then wondering if it is new information for the whole world to see and benefit from.
I also enjoy meeting with many people from around the globe and talking with astronauts from time to time 🙂
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Delma Childers answered on 7 Dec 2015:
I love my job! It’s challenging at times, but also rewarding. I work with so many different people in different places to try to pull everything together for one mission (BIOROCK), so every time we see progress (with results, or talking to people about our work) is fantastic!
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