A Childlike Sense of Wonder: The Curious World of an Aerospace Engineer | Tracy Drain | TEDxPasadena

The audience gasps in delight when this quirky trailblazer, an aerospace engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, shows a rarely seen shot of the south pole of Jupiter. Taught since childhood to cultivate her natural sense of curiosity, Tracy Drain shares beautiful photographs from her work on the Juno mission to Jupiter, and an artist’s renditions of the metallic asteroid 16 Psyche, set to launch in 2022. “Hanging onto my childlike sense of wonder has made it possible for me to grow from a curious little girl in Kentucky to a still-curious engineer working for NASA. You can visit Wonderland whenever you want to! You just need to look at the world through the eyes of your inner child.” Tracy Drain relishes being on the forefront of space exploration. She is a Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA and is currently the Deputy Project System Engineer on the Psyche mission. She received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Kentucky and a MS in Mechanical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. In her 17 years at the JPL, Tracy has been involved in the development, testing, and operation of several missions: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (a science and relay orbiter at Mars), Kepler (a space based observatory searching for Exoplanets), Juno (an orbiter at Jupiter), and her current adventure, Psyche. Psyche will launch in 2022, on a mission to study the solar system’s largest metal asteroid. Tracy is passionate about space exploration and STEM fields in general and loves taking every opportunity to share her enthusiasm with students, parents, and teachers. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx