Volume 29 · Number 2 · Winter 2012
Web extra: Young alums in the work world
Ernesto “Ernie” Prado
Space Vehicle Mockup Facility Mockup Manager and Repair and Mechanisms Instructor;
Operations Support Officer Subject Matter Expert
Ernesto Prado '10 grew up fascinated with air and space travel. “I caught the space bug early on.” As a boy, he attended air shows in Los Angeles with his father, and he still remembers the awe he felt as a 5-year-old when his dad gave him a photograph of astronauts John Young and Bob Crippen in their spacesuits. “Little did I know I’d be 20 years old, working at NASA, when I got to shake the hand of John Young,” Prado said. “I couldn’t imagine myself helping to train these heroes of mine as a job.”
Ernesto Prado
Prado got his foot in NASA’s door while he was studying mechanical engineering at UC Davis and participated in the space agency’s Cooperative Education Program. “I knew I wanted to do something with airplanes or space,” Prado said.
As a NASA Co-op member, Prado participated in four different tasks before he graduated, which include using advanced computer programs to analyze vehicles, organizing daily training procedures and working at the Neutral Buoyancy Lab, the world’s largest indoor pool, which contains a mock up of the international space station. Here, astronauts learn to space walk and use tools in space-like conditions, but Prado was able to achieve something no one else has. “To my knowledge, I am the only one in the world to have snorkeled in the MBL,” Prado said.
Snorkeling isn’t his only claim to fame in the space community—a little bit of Prado was used in orbit. He recently wrote a manual on how to create and apply caution labels on a crucial shuttle tool, which had been giving astronauts problems. “It was a short procedure, but for me, it was significant because it was my first ‘real’ on-orbit product,” he said.
Last July, Prado watched the final space launch on a television screen at NASA's Houston headquarters. “It was sad to see the last launch.”
Prado said he owes his success to the support of his UC Davis professors who went out of their way to help him understand engineering and encouraged him to “be dorky” and love engineering and science.
He plans to go back to school in the future to learn more about space, medicine and engineering, but he hopes to ultimately end up right back to NASA. “It still makes me smile to think that I am lucky enough to participate in humankind’s greatest endeavor, and that I get to work in a place that is so historic and such a source of pride for our country.”
Advice for recent graduates: “Stay positive, tenacious, and keep an open mind during the job search. You may get an offer that is not exactly what you wanted, but that job might just end up being perfect for you. And if it’s not, treat it as a learning experience to serve you later in your career. Learn something from everything, even the interviews.”