Spaceman (song)

In 2008, NASA commissioned storyteller Jay O’Callahan to write a story to celebrate the national space agency’s 50th anniversary. It was a particularly fitting modality, as NASA scientists use storytelling to share the results of their research and projects with their colleagues. O’Callahan’s resulting work, entitled Forged in the Stars, features the stories of three prominent NASA personalities: J.C. High Eagle, a NASA engineer of Cherokee Indian heritage whose childhood dream was to help men land on the moon; astronaut Neil Armstrong in the 1969 Apollo moon landing; and the poignant story of New Hampshire teacher Christa McAuliffe, who died in the space shuttle Challenger disaster

Todd Barber is a propulsion engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) who has worked on projects such as the Cassini mission to Saturn in 1997, the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, and the Galileo project which reached Jupiter's orbit in 1995. Todd received NASA's Exceptional Achievement Award in 1996 fo his work on Galileo. Mr. Barber is a native of Wichita, Kansas and holds degrees in aerospace engineering, with a humanities concentration in music. His hobbies include basketball, singing, playing the piano, and of course, astronomy. Learn more about Jet Propulsion Laboratory by visiting www.jpl.nasa.gov