• Question: Have any of you created any vehicles?

    Asked by 276sptm43 to Angus, Christine, Guy, Ollie on 2 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Guy Rixon

      Guy Rixon answered on 2 Mar 2018:

      Only as a hobby. I don’t get to work on the engineering of the spacecraft themselves. That’s part of the “flight segment” of the missions and I work on the “ground segment”.

      You can get into ground-segment work, as a coder, by training as a scientist and applying for the right jobs. You don’t need formal qualifications in engineering. If you wanted to work in the flight segment and actually build spaceships, then I think you’d need formal training in engineering to get the job. “Formal training” means that you do the right kind of degree at university and then possibly do a master’s degree in engineering afterwards.

    • Photo: Angus Gallie

      Angus Gallie answered on 4 Mar 2018:

      I’ve never actually designed any vehicles, although I find the area of vehicle drive design very interesting. On earthbound vehicles we are going through a very exciting phase right now where technology and pollution legislation is leading us towards all -electric vehicles. Also I think driverless technology is a very exciting (if not scary!) field, which might help solve some of our road congestion problems. I would love to have been involved with some of the companies leading the research and development of electric vehicle technology. I do have quite a bit of experience in looking at electric motor technology and how it can be used to drive mechanisms and machines.

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