Visit to ULA Highlights Need for Engineers to Educations, Students

The Chapter’s STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – Committee sponsored a tour of the United Launch Alliance facility in Old Town. Co-located with SPAWAR headquarters, the ULA builds Centaur rocket motors for the nation’s space program. As part of the Chapter’s commitment to increased awareness of the nation’s need for scientists and engineers, the STEM Committee, with the support of Lockheed Martin, arranged for a tour of the ULA facility for educators, members, and engineering students on February 24th.

ULA’s Anthony Kyriakiois took the group through the complete building of a Centaur motor at the facility from the sheets of raw metal through final assembly. The tour allowed both educators and engineering students the chance to look at the sort of skills needed in the space industry. A point made by launch facility hosts to guest educators was that the industrial base needs graduates with a full range of technical abilities, from vocational type skills needed to run the massive machines in the facility, to the materials engineers and scientists who design and test the final motor.

As the educators and engineering students got a first hand look at what it takes to launch a “payload,” it was clear that sometimes it does take a rocket scientist to maintain America’s edge. As Anthony pointed out, the ultimate users of the Centaur are not just military customers but commercial users such as satellite dish providers. He also stressed that there is international competition for the launch business and the United States needs to be competitive in providing the sort of capability resident in Old Town.

Special thanks to John Cameron and Tim Thalyer of Lockheed Martin for arranging and coordinating the tour.