Thanks to the generosity of Mike and Tracey Gough, owners of Skyhawk flight training school based at Lanseria International Airport, I was invited to cover the amazing story of Nicole meeting with somewhere in the region of 400 school children and around 80 other persons involved in aviation or just curious to meet an astronaut.
Who is Nicole Stott
Nicole was born in Albany, New York on 19 November 1962 and resides in St. Petersburg, Florida. She attended St. Petersburg College studying aviation administration, graduated with a BSc degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 1987 and received her MS degree in Engineering Management from the University of Central Florida in 1992. Nicole Stott began her career in 1987 as a structural design engineer with Pratt & Whitney Government Engines in West Palm Beach, Florida. She spent a year with the Advanced Engines Group performing structural analyses of advanced jet engine component designs. Stott is also an instrument rated private pilot.
In 1988, Nicole joined NASA at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida as an Operations Engineer in the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF). After six months, she was detailed to the Director of Shuttle Processing as part of a two-person team tasked with assessing the overall efficiency of Shuttle processing flows and implementing tools for measuring the effectiveness of improvements. She was the NASA KSC Lead for a joint Ames / KSC software project to develop intelligent scheduling tools.
This story is from the June 2023 edition of African Pilot.
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This story is from the June 2023 edition of African Pilot.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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