I'm a Real Science Writer Now

Well I have been working at NASA Ames for the summer and it has been great fun. I feel like a true science writer now. They hired me to work on the FY06 and FY07 annual reports (from scratch) and I now am putting the finishing touches on the mock-up for the 2006 Annual Report. So I really did accomplish something this summer. 2007 is almost all done as well, though not laid out yet.

I did the lay-out in InDesign, which I have never worked with before. It is a powerful program, that is easy to use once you understand a few rules. I'm glad I have some experience with it now; that is a good skill to have in the job market.

I love my boss, and wish I could continue at NASA, but they told all us interns early on that they don't have enough money to hire us as real employees. In fact that is why they get so many interns: they are cheap and do good work at completing specific projects. Then they leave. It is fun while it lasts, though, and it will look good on the resume.

My department is SimLabs, which runs all the flight and air-traffic control simulation at Ames. Our VMS is the best vertical motion simulator in the world in about 100 different ways, and we are very proud of that. It is an amazing place.

I have learned a huge amount about translating technical documents into more of a marketing tone too, though what I am writing would go to potential customers, so hardly complete lay-people. In fact they know way more about the concepts then I do. But I have enjoyed interviewing the various engineers and becoming something of an expert for a day or two about these esoteric concepts, like pilot control loaders. Fascinating stuff. Ask me anything.

I even flew the Boeing 747 simulator. I crashed the plane. Flying is hard. :-)