Then, in 2011, looking for challenges and a better combination of team leadership and technical expertise, he accepted a promotion to flight director.įlight directors, he said, oversee all Mission Control Center operations, “providing 24/7/365 coverage to ensure astronaut safety, vehicle safety and mission success on the International Space Station.” It was all “an amazing experience,” he said, noting one of the group’s tasks after the 2003 Columbia accident was figuring out how astronauts could do a spacewalk to repair a shuttle if its heat shield was damaged during liftoff. All the while, he worked his way up the ranks of the EVA group, becoming an officer, lead spacewalk officer, spacewalk flight controller, a group leader and an acting branch chief. He started with teaching and training for spacewalks, eventually working 17 space shuttle flights. Tomas Gonzalez-Torres works as a NASA lead spacewalk You have to develop new procedures every single time.”Īfter earning his Iowa State bachelor’s of science degree in 1998, Gonzalez-Torres went right back to NASA and the spacewalk group. The only thing common between spacewalks is the spacesuit. Spacewalks are just amazing things to think about. ![]() “I was so focused, I didn’t want anything else. “That’s where I wanted to be from day one,” he said. ![]() The next four were with the spacewalk team (or, in NASA-speak, the EVA team working on “extravehicular activity”). Next was crew training for shuttle controls and propulsion. That first one involved safety and reliability work. Heading into his junior year, he was accepted to the first of his six NASA co-ops at the Johnson Space Center. Sophomore year, he played trombone for the ISU Cyclone Football “Varsity” Marching Band and for the basketball pep band. He was an aerospace engineering major from his first day on campus. During the tour of the aerospace engineering department, they mentioned that students could do co-ops with NASA.”) (He considered schools such as Notre Dame and Georgia Tech, “but what got me hooked was the campus visit. Gonzalez-Torres graduated from Knoxville High in 1992 and headed to Iowa State. And there are posters of the space shuttle and astronauts.” “I started making model airplanes and my old bedroom in Knoxville still has model airplanes everywhere. “Ever since I was little, airplanes and space were so fascinating,” he said. Throughout his childhood, he loved learning about flight. Gonzalez-Torres was born in Puerto Rico, was 3 when his father started a doctorate in psychology at the University of Arizona and moved the family to Tucson, and was 8 when the family moved to Knoxville in south-central Iowa. “Watching footage from space of a lightning storm below on Earth has always been an amazing view to me – watching as the lightning bounces around from cloud to cloud so gently, but is yet so powerful and potentially dangerous,” he said.Īnd, besides, he wanted the patch to include his family, and his oldest son, T.J., who’s now 8, was a big fan of the original Cars movie and its star racer, Lightning McQueen. And there’s the insignia representing all flight directors. There’s a symbol of a galaxy – representing his family. There are representations of the space shuttle, the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station – signifying his primary missions. There are 11 stars sprinkled around the patch’s black background – he was a member of the flight director class of 2011. In the middle of the bolt is an 82 – Gonzalez-Torres was NASA’s 82nd flight director. The patch features a cardinal oval with a gold lightning bolt slashing diagonally through it – and, yes, the colors represent Iowa State. ![]() His flight director team name, Lightning Flight. Tomas Gonzalez-Torres' NASA patch features
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