When the Space Launch Program (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft lastly launched from the Kennedy Room Center as portion of the Artemis 1 mission, it will not only be a triumph for NASA, but for the UCF alumni who contributed to its growth. Extra than 30 alumni get the job done on the project, including Ben Bair ’19, a fluids layout engineer for Jacobs, which is the greatest contractor at KSC supporting NASA’s Exploration Floor Techniques.
Bair, who acquired a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering at UCF, says that currently being a component of this historic launch with his fellow Knights is a fantastic encounter.
“It’s excellent recognizing outdated classmates, operating with them and continuing to discover our occupations working day in and day out,” Bair states. “It adds a layer of camaraderie as opposed to anyplace else, recognizing we all earned our engineering expertise at UCF and are now carrying the torch for the Artemis method.”
As a fluids style and design engineer, Bair has the opportunity to get the job done on numerous features of the Artemis launches, like the pneumatic force devices for the SLS, fluids evaluation for circulation and pressure projections, and the ocean landing and restoration of the Orion spacecraft.
“For landing and restoration functions, we deliver inflatable devices very similar to what Tom Hanks was rescued in at the conclusion of the motion picture Apollo 13,” Bair says. “My office handles all of the fluids programs for Artemis, and I have experienced the unique possibility to contribute to most of these systems, getting a variety of useful activities and understanding by each individual single one.”
Bair began his vocation at Jacobs as a result of a summertime internship that lasted all over his senior yr of faculty. That internship turned into a comprehensive-time task that carries on his family’s legacy at the Kennedy Area Centre. His mother, an administrative assistant, and his father, a safety skilled, met throughout their get the job done on the Space Shuttle software. His grandfather also worked on the Area Shuttle plan as nicely as the Apollo-Soyuz mission.
When Bair is not performing on Artemis or other spacecrafts, he’s capturing start functions in photos that he posts to his Twitter account, @Bair_Witness, and that NASA often shares on its social media accounts. He states that he’s always experienced an fascination in pictures and he produced his capabilities driving the digital camera all through his time at UCF.
“I started out concentrating on rocket photography once I began using engineering classes,” Bair says. “Taking photographs included a layer of relationship to what I was studying at the time.”
The newbie photographer states he enjoys the obstacle of manually setting up the digicam, capturing the suitable instant and modifying the closing image to perfection. He’s captured several rocket launches right before, but the Artemis 1 launch was a likelihood to capture record in the generating.
“SLS is the major and most potent rocket in existence and the Artemis application is the biggest software of minds, means and intercontinental cooperation in the record of humanity,” Bair states. “I have a special standpoint from my place as an engineer. I only hope my shots can capture a glimpse into it for all people who has contributed and for the broader earth.”
As an engineer, Bair has a firsthand perspective of the innovation, improvements and progress within the aerospace market. He not only knows how the rocket units work, but how the inside devices amid room firms and companies perform. With his engineering eye at the viewfinder, he provides the do the job at KSC into aim for the rest of the planet to see.
“Taking pics makes it possible for me to aim this electrical power and share the massive image with the with household, pals and the wider environment who may perhaps usually not have a immediate url to the program,” Bair states. “Even if it’s just one glimpse of a single photograph – if somebody learns about our return to the moon via just that — it would make it all well worth it.”
