An Evans High School grad made sure today's pre-dawn launch of the space shuttle Endeavor took off without a hitch.
Dana Hutcherson is the NASA flow director for the Endeavor. As such, she oversees the maintenance and repairs to the spacecraft before and after each launch.
"We just ensure everything is ready to fly and everything is ready to go," the 32-year-old engineer told a group of pupils last year at Evans Middle School, where she attended.
Endeavour and its six-member crew are on a 13-day mission to install the last major module for the International Space Station. It was the first of two final mission the Endeavour will fly before NASA shuts down the space shuttle program.
Though a graduate of Evans High, it was in middle school that Hutcherson said she first developed of love of math and science.
"I was going a careers project where I had to interview someone and I talked to a woman engineer," she told the Evans Middle pupils. "I just thought that was something I could do."
After high school, she earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and then a master's degree in engineering management from the University of Central Florida.
Hutcherson now lives near her work with the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.
Reach Donnie Fetter at (706) 868-1222, ext. 115,
or donnie.fetter@augustachronicle.com.
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