• Question: what is your favourite thing about your job?

    Asked by anyalouise13 to Adam, Alexander, Aron, Jess, Neil on 17 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Alexander Finch

      Alexander Finch answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Great lunches!!! 😀

      Just kidding (although I do like the lunches). The overall favourite thing is knowing that the work I’m doing is helping the world a bit. You don’t get to see it immediately, but whenever I use something made by humans and I notice how hard life would be without that something, I realise what it is engineers do. Can you imagine if no engineer had designed the light bulb above you? Or the car? Might be a long walk to get places 🙂 Space engineering is perhaps less tangible – that is, I can’t see the effect so easily – but I know that the spacecraft are helping discover the Universe, informing our leaders and helping us communicate. Oh, and of course, the satellites help tell us when it will rain so I know when to wear a jacket… 🙂

    • Photo: Aron Kisdi

      Aron Kisdi answered on 18 Mar 2014:

      Testing robots/uav outside. Not only gets you our of the lab but it is great to see your hard work in action. And can be challenging (but fun) when you need to fix things.

      Also when I’m visiting ESTEC where Alex works I do look forward to lunch!

    • Photo: Jessica Marshall

      Jessica Marshall answered on 18 Mar 2014:

      Seeing all the big satellites being built and knowing that they are going into space. Also, all the exciting travel and career opportunities.

    • Photo: Neil Bowles

      Neil Bowles answered on 19 Mar 2014:

      Designing, building and testing something from start to finish. So, it might be working out that we need a new type of thermal (heat) camera to measure the surface temperature of the Moon or the Earth. We have the idea of what we would like to measure and then design the instrument as part of a large team, then build it and then hopefully get it on a spacecraft to get our measurements made in space.

      We did this recently with a small satellite called ‘TechDemoSat’, and now were waiting for it to launch to space in June.

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