>> Brian Roberts: [Background
sounds] Hello my name's Brian Roberts
and I'm a robotics team lead here
at NASA Goddard Space Flight center.
>> Can you tell us a little bit
about what you do on a daily basis?
What exactly does it mean it be a robotist?
>> Brian Roberts: What I do is I actually
manage a team of roboticists and programmers
and engineers that we are
developing a simulation capability
where we can simulate robots working in
space but simulate that here on the ground.
>> Can you take us through like
a day in the life of your job?
>> Brian Roberts: Well, I usually start
in the morning with a staff meeting,
with the senior staff that I work with, my boss
and my boss's boss, and then I meet with my team
to tell them what we decided in the
morning, what the plans are for the future,
either for that day or the rest of the week.
And then it just depends on the day if we're
getting ready for demo I'll come over and meet
with my team to make sure
we're ready for the demo.
We'll talk about future demos we have planned
and making sure the software's all ready
and the robot's all ready and all the
hardware's ready, and just, kind of,
make sure that everyone knows what we're doing
and that everything's done
when it needs to be done.
>> Can you talk about one of the project
you're working right now a little bit
and describe what it is exactly?
>> Brian Roberts: Sure.
We're flying an experiment up to the
International Space Station later this year
that will demonstrate that robots
can go up and put, basically,
gas in satellites that are running out of gas.
There's a lot of satellites in space that are
working just fine, the only thing that's wrong
with them is they just run out of fuel,
just like your car runs out of fuel.
There's currently no way to put
gas in satellites, they basically,
when they run out of fuel, they either burn
them up in the atmosphere and they dump
into the ocean, or they boost them really
high up into space and just leave them
out there for tens of thousands of years.
So we're showing on the Space Station using a
robot on the Space Station that we can go up
and use the -- a port that they use
to put gas in the satellite when it's
on the ground, but do it up in space.
And so we're doing here in the lab,
we're demonstrating all the tools
and techniques you would need to go do
that before we actually go do it for real.
>> So once the robot's up there would
you actually control it from down here?
>> Brian Roberts: Yes.
Actually it would be controlled from
the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
That was where they control
the robots and space station.
So what we're doing here is developing
the procedures we would then give
to the Johnson Space Center to
actually go command the robot
when we do the demonstration sometime next year.
>> Now would you actually go up on
the flight to put it up there or no?
>> Brian Roberts: No, unfortunately
they won't send us up there.
I'm sure I'd have plenty of volunteers
here on my team, but the robot's already
on the space station, all we're doing is we're
setting up the tools that the robots would use
to go do this work as well as the mockup of
a satellite that it would have to interact
with to pretend like it's
putting fuel in a satellite.
>> Can you tell us a little
bit about your story?
How did you end up in this
career field and working at NASA?
>> Brian Roberts: Well it
actually started in high school.
I was in 4-H and did a lot of rocketries
projects where I built rockets and launched them
on the fourth of July for different projects.
And then in high school I had to do a
term paper, I think my sophomore year,
and I did it on the Challenger
disaster that happened in 1986.
And I, kind of, got really excited about the
space program from doing that report and looked
around for opportunities, and when I went
to college there was an opportunity my freshman
year to actually work at the NASA Center
in Cleveland and I did that part
time while I went to school.
And from there, the more I learned about
NASA, the more I got excited about it,
and then when I graduated from college, as an
undergrad in Cleveland, I actually came here
to Goddard Space Flight Center
as an intern and I worked here
for the summer and loved it even more.
And then basically have been here ever since.
I did my graduate work down at the
University of Maryland down the street here,
but in conjunction with the folks at NASA
Goddard, and so when a job opened up,
they hired me on because I, kind of --
I'd been working with them for,
you know, five or six years.
>> What do you love about your job?
>> Brian Roberts: I love the challenges.
It's always a different challenge
coming in each day.
It's not -- we're not doing the same thing
over and over; there's always something new
to put our engineering expertise,
kind of, to use.
And I really love interacting with
the folks and the team I have,
and really seeing the team come
together and accomplish a goal.
It's really, kind of, exciting.
It's something I couldn't do on my own.
It really takes a, you know, group of people to
accomplish the mission we have, and it's really,
kind of, exciting to see that when
it all happens and becomes true.
>> What are some of the challenges
that you face?
>> Brian Roberts: Probably the biggest
challenge is the changing priorities.
As I mentioned, you know, we'll meet in
the morning to, kind of, plan out the week
or the month and, on occasion, the plan
that we had for last week may change,
and so trying to adjust to
those changes is tough.
And then communicating that with
my team is also quite a challenge.
And just finding the time to try to fit
everything into a day that you need to get done,
as priorities change, is challenging sometimes.
>> What does it take to be
successful in this field?
>> Brian Roberts: I think a passion
for what you do, like you really have
to love what you're doing and that way it
doesn't feel so bad when you have to, you know,
spend extra time doing work or
make -- deal with those challenges.
It's a lot easier if you actually
enjoy what you're doing to get
up in the morning and love your job.
And I think it's, like I said, just very
exciting to be in the space program and to show
that you're supporting, you
know, the nation's space program.
It's, kind of, really neat.
>> Any kind of personality type you'd recommend?
>> Brian Roberts: I think definitely amenable
to work with other people and not being set
in your ways that, you know, your
idea's always the best and not listening
to other people's ideas and willing to accept
criticism, I think, is a big trait you need
in this line of business because, again,
it's a team that's coming together
and it's very rarely just one
person's idea you're running with.
It's, kind of, a combination of
ideas, and so being able to work
on a team, I think, is really important.
And I think a passion for learning, as well.
A lot of the stuff I'm doing now
in my day-to-day work is not
necessarily the stuff I learned in school,
but in school we learned how to learn
and how to apply what I learned,
and I think that's really important
to be able to apply what you learned
and really have a passion
for learning new things.
I think you'll succeed in this line of business.
>> What could somebody do to prepare themselves?
Any type of college major you would suggest?
>> Brian Roberts: I think
anything in the sciences,
engineering, physics, I think is great.
You also need an English background.
There's a lot of reports you write
and a lot of presentations you give.
I think people think sometimes the technical
fields that you don't need to have that,
kind of, liberal arts background, so I
think those backgrounds are important,
but any sort of science or engineering, I
think, would prepare you because, again,
you're really learning in college how to think,
not necessarily all the skills
you'll need on the job.
You learn a lot of that on the job
so, I think, just that, kind of,
critical thinking that you learned in
college, I think, is really the key.
>> Are there actually majors in robotics?
>> Brian Roberts: There is.
There's one university, Carnegie Mellon
University, actually has a grad program
in robotics and, I think, RPI, up in
the mid -- northeast, has a program,
an undergrad program in robotics.
But robotics is really electrical
engineering, mechanical engineering.
I'm an air space engineer and been doing
robotics, so it's really a broad field
of engineering, but they do have some
programs that specialize in robotics.
>> Can you touch a little bit
on what your hours are like?
>> Brian Roberts: Typically I
try to keep a 8:30 to 5:30 or so.
There are times when I have to, you know,
stay late to get ready for a demo or prepare,
but most times I try to keep, you know, an eight
hour day so that I can do stuff at home and hang
out with my wife and my little baby, so...
>> Do you get to travel at all for your job?
>> Brian Roberts: I do, and if you ask my
wife, she thinks I travel a lot [laughter].
At least the work we do we occasionally go
down to the Johnson Space Center in Houston
to interact with the robot folks down
there, and the engineers and the managers.
Also I have to travel to Canada to meet with the
folks in Canada that actually built the robot,
and then there's traveling to different
satellite manufacturers that are interested
in having a robot fix their satellites.
So occasionally we do have to
travel around the country to meet
with some of those manufacturers as well.
>> Any final advice for someone
interested in entering this career field?
>> Brian Roberts: I would say, you know, make
sure you really pick something that you really
like doing and if this a career field you
really are passionate about, go for it.
And, like I said, always
have a passion for learning.
Just because you graduated from college
doesn't mean your learning stops.
You really have to continue with your education
and learning and seminars and training,
and just make sure when you wake up
in the morning you love your job and,
you know, love doing what you're doing.
If not, try to find something
else that gets that passion
and really liking what you're doing will
really take you really far in this field.
>> Great advice.
Brian from NASA in robotics.
Thank you very much.
>> Brian Roberts: Thank you.