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Plywood 'Rocket' Sparked a Spacecraft Career:
Spaceflight Operations Engineer David Doody

Contact: Enrico Piazza (818) 393-1095
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
April 2, 2003

David Doody has been flying spacecraft since he was 5.

Well, sort of flying them.

He and his childhood friends built big mock-ups of Flash Gordon-style
spacecraft, flew them outdoors and sometimes lit their "rocket
engines" on fire. As a safer alternative, his dad built a plywood
play rocket in the backyard of the family's Teaneck, N.J., home. The
16-foot-high, silver-painted structure could fit half a dozen kids
inside. It immediately became the young Doody's favorite toy.

"My friends and I could fly around the solar system in this real cool
spaceship," he says. "I've been a space nut ever since."

Nowadays, Doody is still flying spacecraft.

Literally.

He leads the flight operations controllers for Cassini, a NASA
spacecraft on its way to arrive at Saturn in July 2004. Doody's team
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., is in charge
of the data exchanges with the spacecraft through the Deep Space
Network, a sort of communication hub between Earth and Cassini.

Passion for Space Exploration

Two things besides toy rockets fueled Doody's fascination with space.

"Our next-door neighbor was a rocket fuel scientist," Doody says. "My
father would talk to him about space and rockets and I thought
rockets were the coolest things."

Then, when Doody was 7, he was treated to his first peek through a
telescope.

"The sight of Jupiter and the sight of Saturn for me were
compelling," he says. "These are awesome places. And they are in our
own backyard, the solar system. "

Spreading the Word

Thankful for the circumstances that made him fall in love with space
exploration, Doody finds many ways to return the favor.

When a planet is in a good viewing position, he often borrows a
200-millimeter (8-inch) diameter telescope from JPL's Astronomy Club
and sets it up on the crowded streets of Old Town Pasadena. The line
of people waiting to peek through the telescope soon stretches
halfway down the block. 

"Many of them have never seen through a telescope before. Many are
kids," he says. "I hope that I can share with others what was very
exciting for me when I was 7 years old."

The planet Saturn with its fascinating rings is probably the biggest
hit, he adds.

"It looks like a jewel. It's really beautiful, and people are
astounded," he says. "People see why it's so fascinating and
understand right away why you want to send a spacecraft to study it
close-up." 

The author of many articles published in professional journals and in
magazines, Doody showcased his talent as an educator in a widely used
work, Basics of Space Flight, of which he is the lead author. This
detailed overview of the physics behind space exploration and the
basics of spacecraft design was originally written to train JPL
flight controllers. It became available to the public in 1993 on the
then sparsely-populated World Wide Web. The work won numerous awards
and today it's used in physics and astronomy classrooms. Amateurs
wanting to deepen their understanding of robotic space exploration
can complete the course at their own pace. 

His latest teaching project is a Gravity Assist Mechanical Simulator.
Resembling a stripped down pinball machine, the device illustrates
how gravity assist works. Gravity assist is a technique used by
spacecraft to save fuel and increase speed by exploiting a planet's
orbital momentum. Diagrams and instructions to build the simulator
are downloadable from the Web, as well as detailed information and
prices of needed parts -- all available at hardware stores. For less
than $70, teachers can build from scratch a three-foot wide machine.

Reminiscent of his childhood toys, Doody also provides budding
astro-explorers with downloadable spacecraft scale models.

"I think the Web has such potential, I tried to do something
different," he says. "Instead of just looking at pictures and reading
words and just looking at movies and listening to sounds, I've put up
some spacecraft scale models that can be downloaded and actually put
together in three-dimensions. 

"If you build the Cassini model, for example, you'll know all about
the spacecraft and its parts, not just words and pictures. You'll
have to put the camera exactly here -- and you know exactly where it
is, and how the spacecraft has to turn to use the camera."

From Pilot to Navigator

After a stint in the Air Force, Doody, a commercial pilot, worked as
an instructor for Japan Airlines. He then worked as a systems
engineer on Santa Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles,
while living aboard a 46-foot sailboat with his partner Donald
Whiting. They moved ashore to the Los Angeles area so that Doody
could combine his passion for computers and teaching in a job with
the Deep Space Network, NASA's antenna system that allows
communications with spacecraft. 

As an engineer at JPL since 1985, Doody worked on the Voyager mission
to outer planets and the Magellan mission to Venus before joining the
Cassini mission.

He also volunteers his time on PlanetTrek, a Planetary Society
project to build a scale model of the solar system. With 10
sculptures at scale distances in Pasadena, the project will include
artwork and information about each planet. Pluto will be considerably
smaller than a green pea and placed just outside JPL -- five miles
from the five-foot diameter Sun. 

Sharing his love for space exploration is a must, Doody says, given
how lucky he has been.

"To be able now to work on projects that are flying to the planets
has been really a dream."

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