Seth Leonard
sleonard@salisburypost.com
NASA launched what it calls America’s first steps back to the moon Thursday with two lunar modules. And a Salisbury man has a hand in the endeavor.
Rivers Lamb is an aerospace engineer at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Working for NASA, he supported this project by calculating complex flight dynamics and orbital trajectories needed to reach the moon.
The mission is meant to create new maps of the lunar surface. NASA managers hope new information will allow them to once again send astronauts safely to the moon.
According to Lamb’s mother, he has always had his head in the stars.
“It’s the only thing he’s ever wanted to do, to work for NASA,” said Jean Lamb, a homemaker who lives in Salisbury.
Lamb’s father, Steve, is an engineer at the Performance Fibers plant in western Rowan. He always advised his son to pursue a more versatile field of engineering than aerospace. The sector has been notoriously boom and bust, but the younger Lamb was difficult to dissuade.
Lamb graduated from West Rowan High School as valedictorian in 1998.
He also achieved the rank of Eagle Scout and played soccer and tennis.
He went to Virginia Tech, where he studied aerospace engineering and was able to tackle a co-op study with NASA.
Lamb, 29, already has had an exemplary career. A successful launch Thursday marked the largest of his major projects so far. He will monitor the mission for only the first 10 days of its year-long flight. After that he will move into an associate branch position managing software development.
Lamb isn’t certain about the future of his career.
“I always wanted to be part of the manned flight program,” he said. “In the back of my mind, maybe I want to go somewhere else.”
As a former athlete and current scientist, the possibility remains of him getting to space as an astronaut.
Lamb is a model for others seeking to be successful.
“Anybody from anywhere can do anything they want,” he said. “NASA hires from all over the nation.”
Lamb noted that the best chance to work for the space agency comes from a background in science or engineering. He said NASA also hires a lot of public relations professionals, business and purchasing managers and contractors.
“It’s not the highest paying position in the world,” he said of his job. “But it’s a darn good one.”
He said the biggest payoff is the satisfaction from having a job you love. He noted that as an engineer, there was probably more money in a private company.
At a time when people are intensely focused on problems on Earth, it can be difficult for some to see the benefit of spending billions of dollars for space exploration. But Lamb offers this historical comparison:
“Space exploration is pushing the next frontier,” he said. “Look back at Columbus, for example. He didn’t know what was going to come of that. NASA’s role in our country is to discover things we didn’t know we’d discover.”
NASA officials are looking at building a permanent base or colony on the moon that could provide important practice for more difficult missions to Mars and beyond. Some also believe the moon could be a potential source for helium-based fuels.