Beautiful Teams

Chapter 18. Building Spaceships

Peter Glück

Is there any geeky kid in the United States who didn't grow up wanting to be a part of NASA? We sure did. That's why we were excited when we got in touch with Peter Glück, who's been working on and running software teams for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for more than 20 years. We wanted to know what it was like to work on a NASA team, and even more, what it was like to send his software into space, where it has to work and you can't just walk over and patch it.

Andrew: Tell us a little bit about your background, how you came to be at NASA, and the kinds of projects you've worked on.

Peter: I have a master's degree in aerospace engineering and a bachelor's in mathematics. I actually went on a field trip in fourth grade to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory here in Pasadena, and came home that day and said, "Mom, when I grow up, I want to work at JPL."

Andrew: So, you've wanted to work with NASA since you were a little kid.

Peter: Yeah, so I was kind of focused as a youngster. Actually, at one point, I wanted to join the Air Force and fly jets, but my vision precluded that.

I went to Cal State Northridge, and while I was there I had a class with a girl whose father worked here. She got me an interview, and I've been here for 22 years. That's how I got started at NASA.

Andrew: Tell us a little bit about the projects you've done, especially in terms of the kind of software. We want to talk about teams in general, and the kinds of teams that ...