A Saint Louis University graduate’s career has quite literally reached atmospheric heights over the summer.
Kelly Beck, who graduated summa cum laude from SLU’s Parks College in 1988 with a degree in aerospace engineering, was selected by NASA as lead flight director for June’s Atlantis shuttle mission.
As lead flight director, Beck was responsible for supervising a staff of flight controllers, engineers and other staffers who manned mission control 24-hours-a-day during the 14-day duration of the shuttle’s flight. NASA reports that the shuttle logged 5.8 million miles of travel over the course of a “successful” mission.
During the mission, the crew of astronauts performed four spacewalks in order to make repairs to the International Space Station. The crew also brought a new astronaut to the space station while carrying another space station astronaut back safely.
This marked NASA’s 118th space shuttle flight.
K. Ravindra, Ph.D., worked with Beck during her time as a student at SLU. Ravindra currently serves as the chairman of the department of aerospace and mechanical engineering, and he expressed his pride in Beck’s accomplishment on SLU’s Newslink: “It gives the faculty and staff in the department great pride and satisfaction to see that one of their graduates has risen to the level of such high technical responsibility.”
In an interview with Newslink, Parks College Dean Manoj Patankar, Ph.D., linked Beck’s success with the education that Parks College offers. “By being selected to lead this historic mission, Beck exemplifies the high-caliber graduates Parks College has produced during the last 80 years,” he said.
This marks the second time a SLU alumni has reached the national spotlight as a NASA employee. Gene Kranz, who served as commander of mission control during the first moon landing and the Apollo 13 rescue mission, graduated from SLU in 1954.
Ravindra was quick to tell The University News that Beck is joined at NASA by several recent graduates of the program. “Clearly [the achievements of Beck and others] reflect very well on the engineering programs at Parks and the kind of training they experience in various courses within the curriculum,” he said.
Ravindra said that students who hope to follow in Beck’s footsteps should remember that their degrees at SLU will be the foundation for more education that will make employment at NASA possible: “An undergraduate degree simply opens up the door for our students to explore bigger, better and more challenging career opportunities.”
Other graduates of Parks College have gained employment at several companies with a national profile, after taking part in the complex curriculum that gives students the opportunity to experience in-depth learning in the fields of helicopter performance, orbital mechanics and hypersonics. Ravindra said that recent graduates have held positions at The Boeing Company, Lockheed Martin, Southwest Airlines, Northwest Airlines and American Airlines.
