Joseph Watson, 2021 NASA Goddard Space Center Intern

Biography

SPS Chapter: McMurry University

I have studied at McMurry University in Abilene TX, and I am a graduating physics major with an emphasis in mechanical engineering and minor in mathematics. I first became interested in engineering as I worked on my first vehicle which was a classic pickup truck. I enjoyed learning how things worked, and I learned how to repair and improve different mechanical components as I got it back on the road. Through McMurry’s physics program, I have learned about how to develop mechanical systems using engineering solutions, but I have also learned about the physics behind these solutions. This has increased my understanding of how and why engineering solutions work and how to use them better.
I have participated in SPS events since I was a freshman and I have served as our chapter’s president for two years. As president, I have enjoyed organizing and helping with multiple SPS projects including the repair of our trebuchet which we had a successful fundraiser with to raise money for disaster relief. Our chapter also built a model of the Da Vinci Helicopter which spins when a button is pressed. It is hoped that this model will intrigue McMurry students and the 5th graders in the McMurry McMagnet program and interest them in physics.
As I anticipate graduation, I am looking forward to working with NASA Goddard on the Experiment for Cryogenic Large-Aperture Intensity Mapping (EXCLAIM). I am very excited to work with new people, work on new projects, and continue to learn!

Internship

Host: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Project

Abstract

I have been working at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on the EXCLAIM team. EXCLAIM’s mission is to use a cryogenic balloon bourn telescope to record a three-dimensional intensity map in the microwave electromagnetic range corresponding to carbon monoxide and carbon ion emission to study galaxy evolution and star formation. My work focused on the spectrometer package and readout, taking a preliminary design meeting mission requirements to a complete mechanical design that has been sent to machine shops for fabrication. These tasks have involved challenging special, thermal, magnetic, and electrical constrains. After everything was verified, drawings of highly complex parts were produced and sent to machine shops for quotes and future purchase.

Final Presentation

Internship Blog

Week 1

This week at SPS: The first week of my internship with SPS has been exciting. This summer’s internship program is still remote because of COVID-19, but there are still plenty of fun things happening virtually. We had our orientation this week, and we also had a meet and greet event! Us interns have also been hanging out. Before we even got started, we did a game night on zoom a few weeks ago, so that was super fun. This week we had a “Bad Physics” movie night, and we watched Antman!

This week at NASA: My internship placement is at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where I am working on the EXCLAIM team with Dr. Eric Switzer. EXCLAIM is the “experiment for cryogenic large-aperture intensity mapping,” and it seeks to study star formation by building a balloon-borne instrument that will measure the redshifted emission of carbon monoxide and single-ionized carbon to form an intensity map of the sky.

Mind-blowing fact of the week: Having little experience or previous interest in similar research, I thought that about 2.7 kelvin was close to the lowest achievable temperature because that is the temperature of space. However, the instrument for this project is to be operated around 1.7 kelvin, and the spectrometers used are to be operated around 0.1 kelvin!

Week 2

This week at SPS: This week, we got to meet the members of the executive committee of SPS and Sigma Pi Sigma during a happy hour. We got to play skribblio which was very fun while playing with a set of physics words. There were several times where some of us knew what it was, or at least the topic, but couldn’t put our finger on the actual correct word. There were even times after we switched to random words that we all knew what it was and most of us couldn’t spell whatever it was. We had a great time!

This week at NASA: This week we had a cool tour of one of the labs. They had an exact hardware and wiring duplicate of flight systems for hardware testing and simulation. This was really cool to see how they got that setup.

I recently recueved some assignments for the EXCLAIM project. I am going to be optimizing some design elements for a few hardware configurations, and I will also be working on doing some engineering drawings of some hardware components to be sent off for machine work. I am very excited to be working and getting experience and meeting people!

Mind-blowing fact of the week: The complexity of even the smallest parts is remarkable. Some intricacies are for light-weighting, for structure, for mounting, for assembly, and so on. These will certainly be a challenge to draw for the machine shops, but it will be a great learning experience!

Week 3

This week at SPS: This week, we had a fantastic intern game night and get-together. It was an awesome time to visit and hang out with each other. We also played a game called werewolf which reminded several of us of the campfire game mafia!

This week at NASA: NASA presented the interns with an opportunity to learn programming in python. I have gladly taken advantage of this opportunity. Throughout the presentation of this new language, it is a relief that the previous programming education and experience I have had is highly relevant and similar conceptually. However, learning the new syntax of a new language is definitely a challenge!

I have recently been assigned a task to create some mounting brackets for some hardware for the EXCLAIM project. While this seemed very simple at first glance, it has turned into a much bigger project. Considering mounting holes for the hardware, its location and orientation on the instrument, and an ideal breadboard patterned mounting hole arrangement, this has placed many constraints on the design. This project is proving to be a great learning and problem-solving experience!

Mind-blowing fact of the week: Programming syntax is like a different dialect of a language you already know. Some might say you all, yall, or all you over there... Programing syntax is much the same way. Saying “hello” while programming in C, is simply => printf(“hello”); In python however, it is => print(“hello”) While these are very similar, they have their differences, just like dialects of a language!

Week 4

This week at SPS: This week, we had a great meet and greet with Nobel Prize winner, Dr. John Mather. He shared inspirational thoughts and is an encouragement to all of us interns as we take on our internships with SPS.

This week at NASA: This week, I have still been taking the python courses, and it has been very informative. I am learning about arrays, and visual representation using python, which is a fantastic tool that I will have available to me going forward.

In my work, I have still been making modifications to parts and mounting brackets for instrument hardware. I am looking forward to new design challenges and opportunities to learn each and every day!

Mind-blowing fact of the week: Designing parts can be very challenging but rewarding. Metal parts have to be made via machine work, or casting, or using other advanced manufacturing methods. One key element in designing something is knowing how features are produced as they go into design. While some theoretical designs can be helpful in concept, they may also be difficult, impossible, or too expensive to produce. Final designs require extensive thought and planning. While I already knew this, I can definitely appreciate this more now that I am designing myself!

Week 5

This week at SPS: It seemed like all of us interns were pretty busy this week. I was certainly busy, and it was good to stay in touch with Gina as we both worked on our respective projects at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center on the EXCLAIM team!

This week at NASA: This week, I finalized several revisions and reviews of some instrument components. These will eventually be sent off for machine work, and I have been working on drawings of these for the machine shops. I have also started collaboration with another NASA intern as we work on a project with adjoining components! I continue to look forward to weeks ahead, new projects, and new opportunities.

Mind-blowing fact of the week: Alright so this may not be a fact, but it is certainly a reality. A project is never as simple or complex as it first seems. It might initially look simple at first glance, but soon it will become complex. Or maybe it looks complex, but just when you think you understand it, you realize how little you actually understand!

Week 6

This week at SPS: This week, we had a fantastic meet and greet with our guest speaker, and former congressman, Dr. Rush Holt. He shared lots of motivational insights and talked about while the topic of science is commonly associated with places like the department of defense, or NASA, there are different aspects of science in many of the bills that congress considers. He also talked about how having a scientific education is beneficial for considering policy. After hearing him talk, I hosted one of the several Jackbox games on zoom called split the room! We had a fun time and lots of laughs playing and spending time together!

This week at NASA: A couple weeks ago, my mentor sent out information about a Line Intensity Mapping Workshop to the entire EXCLAIM team hosted by the University of Chicago. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend this virtual conference on zoom and I listened to many talks including talks given by three of the EXCLAIM team members!

The rest of my work for the week consisted of continued work on drawings and working on some hardware mounting configurations. Looking forward to another week and another challenge!

Mind-blowing fact of the week: A 3D printer can be used to produce a slit to observe single slit diffraction using a laser. When correct, the laser is passed through a narrow slit and an interference pattern is produced on a screen a short distance away showing a bright center and dimmer spots farther away. How do I know? Well, I did it! One of our tasks as interns for SPS was to do a demo video for the 2021 Virtual Summer AAPT meeting and I wanted to show an example of how a 3D printer can be used to create tools for laboratory demonstrations!

Week 7

This week at SPS: This week, we had a resume writing workshop and we learned how to write a skills-based resume to better appeal to employers. It was emphasized that you should expect to write a resume for each application you complete and that a resume is intended to achieve an interview, and then hopefully the interview will lead to employment!

This week at NASA: This week has been work as normal. Things are starting to converge, and I have been making good progress.

Mind-blowing fact of the week: Most typical hot air balloons fly below 3,000 ft. EXCLAIM however, intends to fly around 100,000 ft. with a mass of around 3,000 kg!

Week 8

This week at SPS: This week a few of us interns got together on a video call. It was awesome to chat and catch up with everyone about what they have been up to this summer in their internship positions.

This week at NASA: More of the same at NASA this week, I did get some part drawings sent off for quotes and got a few back. I am looking forward to getting more quotes back in to compare. I’ve also been working with another of the NASA interns doing some structural analysis for some of her work. One of my studies showed that one of the brackets that she made would just barely hold the entire weight of the receiver! Thankfully, there will be six connections, so there will be lots of extra support to ensure reliability and safety.

Mind-blowing fact of the week: I have mentioned that I am working on a mission for a balloon bourn telescope, so that means that it will take pictures just like we would see if we were on the balloon right? Not quite! EXCLAIM’s telescope will measure light which is more generally an electromagnetic wave, but the light spectrum of consideration for this project is in the microwave range.

Week 9

This week at SPS: This week, several of us got together and watched a short movie after catching up about our week a little, so this was great! We also had a talk about a fantastic undergrad research program aimed at the lower classman at universities who want to get into research!

This week at NASA: I am looking forward to getting more quotes back in on some parts to compare with those I have already received. I have also been working on presentations and final submissions of my work this summer for EXCLAIM and the Goddard Space Flight Center intern program.

Mind-blowing fact of the week: So, EXCLAIM is strapping a telescope onto a balloon. Why not just build it on the ground, or put a satellite in orbit? Well, while a balloon mission has its challenges, the reasons for using one are simpler than you might expect. Building a telescope on the ground is great and it’s easy to make changes or repairs, but then you have atmospheric interference in your data, and there can be orbiting satellites in orbit blocking a portion of telescope and so on. A satellite on the other hand is more expensive to put in orbit and is a one-time deal. Once it’s up, you can’t easily get it down to change things on it. With a balloon, it can be sent up, retrieved, repaired, or modified, and sent up again!

Week 10

This week at SPS: This week, we had an awesome practice session where we got feedback and suggestions for our final presentations, and then we had a fantastic 2021 SPS Internship Symposium, so check that video out here . I would highly encourage everyone to watch all of the presentations because they were all very informative talks! However, to hear about what is going on at NASA, check out Gina’s presentation at 1:18:05 talking about EXCLAIM’s mission and data processing, followed by my presentation on the instrumentation to make it possible!

This week at NASA: My last week at NASA was a little slow having finished up many of my projects and not much time left this term to start a new project. However, I did get all my work saved into the vault in SOLIDWORKS for the EXCLAIM team to have easy access to, and I also packed away everything else into a zip folder and made backup copies of my work so that nothing gets lost.

Mind-blowing fact of the week: It’s over, and its sad to go. I will miss the other interns that made this summer so amazing. Especially being virtual, it was awesome to have our get together meet up times to hang out. Thankfully, its not goodbye, but until then because I am excited to meet the SPS and AIP staff, and the interns in person soon at one of the upcoming conferences. Finally, I am pleased to announce that my journey with NASA is far from over! In fact, it will be more than doubled from what I expected in the beginning. I have been offered a continued internship on the EXCLAIM team with NASA for this fall and I start again in two weeks! So yet again, I look forward to new challenges, new opportunities, and more experience!

Thank you: I’d like to express my appreciation for everyone who made this summer possible! Starting at the beginning, thanks to my mom and dad for encouraging me to pursue my dreams and apply to McMurry University, thanks to all of the professors at McMurry where I studied physics and mathematics, and especially to Dr. Tikhon Bykov, Dr. Wayne Keith, and Dr. Timothy Renfro in physics, and to Dr. Cindy Martin, Dr. Mark Thornburg, and Dr. Kelly McCoun in math. Without all of your expertise in your respective subjects and your willingness to guide me through my education at McMurry, I wouldn’t have achieved such an amazing internship! Special thanks to SPS/AIP for hosting the 2021 summer interns, and especially to my fellow interns for making this a fantastic summer. Thank you to Brad Conrad, Kayla Stephens, and Mikayla Cleaver for all of your support this summer, and to NASA and the EXCLAIM team for an internship I will never forget. Last but certainly not least, thank you to my mentors Dr. Eric Switzer and Dr. Tom Essigner-Hileman for your guidance on my projects this summer, and for the opportunity to continue this fall!