Nate Uitenbroek

I am the flight software architect for Orion. It’s my job to make sure the flight software is created, tested and verified properly so that it’s safe for the crew to fly onboard the vehicle. I look forward to putting a crew onboard and seeing it perform the mission it was designed to do, which is deep space exploration. The whole world’s eyes will be on it. There are few events that attract that kind of attention, and unfortunately many are negative. This is one of the few positive events that can galvanize and unify us as human beings.

I would like for all of us to have a photograph of the astronauts on our desks - not just a headshot of them in their orange flight suits, but of them with their families. It would be a reminder every day that when we go to work, real people’s lives are in our hands.