How Russian specialists work at NASA

The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the best government employer of 2016 and 2017, according to a study by Deloitte and the non-profit organization Partnership for Public Service. Of the 80, thousands of people who work at NASA, 20 thousand are full-time employees and 60 thousand are contract employees of contracting companies.

The conditions are really excellent, says contractor Sergey Gusev: the average salary is above $ 100 thousand per year, there are social benefits. Gusev is one of many Russian-speaking NASA employees. Magazine RBC I found several NASA workers from the USSR and Russia and found out how it turned out that they were developing the American, rather than the domestic space industry.

From Balashikha to Washington

35-year-old Sergei Korkin was born in Balashikha and graduated from the Moscow Energy Institute with a degree in optics and electronic devices. In 2006, the young man graduated from the magistracy, three years later - graduate school.

One day, Korkina’s supervisor asked if he wanted to work in America. Sergei dreamed of doing science, but in the graduate school "did not pay anything." In parallel with his studies, Korkin repaired surveillance cameras and was engaged in conference calls to make a living.

“I keep in touch with former university colleagues. Muscovites who were more capable of science than me went into private companies, ”he says.

In 2010, Korkin came to the United States for an annual internship, but he has been living in the country for the eighth year. All this time he has been working at the Goddard Space Flight Center (Goddard Space Flight Center), NASA research laboratory near Washington. Korkin lives with his wife and two children in Crofton, Maryland, the road to work on the car takes about half an hour. Daughter goes to a private kindergarten at NASA.

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Photo: from the personal archive of Sergey Korkin

Formally, Korkin works for the non-profit corporation USRA GESTAR, which has a contract with NASA. The Goddard Center tests satellites, studies ecology and weather, but can also do non-specialized research. When a few years ago cars Toyota began to randomly accelerate on the roads, it was NASA that was looking for the cause of the problem, the mathematician recalls.

Now Korkin is involved in the development of software that counts on how light is scattered in the atmosphere. The obtained data is compared with the data of the Earth remote sensing satellite. Landsat:

“It allows to judge the purity of the atmosphere. In particular, to track the emergence and movement of small particles that can enter the blood through the lungs and cause illness in urban residents. ”

Information obtained through these programs and Landsat, is stored in the public domain, it can be used by any organization. "We, unfortunately, do not have such a satellite, although the country is large, it needs monitoring of forests and fields," complains Korkin. He says “we,” “we,” “our country,” always referring to Russia: “I have no right to say“ our country ”about America — I am not a citizen.” There are a lot of people from the USSR around Korkin, which “negatively affects the level of the English language,” he laughs.

Programmers from NASA as a whole "don't care where they work," they just "write code." Korkin could work in his homeland, but he doesn’t know “who in Russia can pay a normal salary for working with the integral”. When Sergey communicates with colleagues who settled in Germany, who periodically, like him, complain about Western life, they agree on one thing: if you return to Russia, you will have to forget about science.

At NASA, Corkin is engaged in "more science than technology." He does not need to strictly adhere to the schedule: the main thing is the result, although one cannot be absent for a week without a reason either. In people who are engaged in the production of satellites at the agency, on the contrary, everything is arranged by the minute. Korkin calls USRA GESTAR a typical American company: employees have a rigid hierarchy and a system of bonuses - “you can get a pension increase”.

Americans immediately focus on the consumer, argues the expert about why in Russia there is not a single successful private space company. “The first supercomputer in Europe was created in the Soviet Union and immediately classified. As soon as the Europeans created a supercomputer, they started selling it, ”Korkin throws up his hands.

Photo: from the personal archive of Natalia Buzulukova

Fundamental space

“When I say that I work at NASA, I hear in response:“ Oh, tell me! ”, Says Natalia Buzulukova, a researcher at the agency. She was born and raised in Minsk in a family of engineers. In childhood, she read out the magazines "Young Technician" and "Technique - Youth". Before the eighth grade she studied music, “like all the girls of that time,” and after the eighth, she entered the physical and mathematical class and realized that physics is her vocation.

The Soviet Union collapsed when Natalya attended the first year of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT). Buzulukova calls the happy coincidence the fact that she has remained in science, since in 1990, about “everyone has forgotten” about science.

In graduate school at the Institute of Biochemical Physics. N. M. Emanuel of the Russian Academy of Sciences Buzulukova for the year was engaged in fullerenes (special carbon compounds used in many areas - from medicine to superconducting and quantum technologies. - Ed.) And nanotubes.

“There were interesting people there, but in general there was an atmosphere of easy stagnation,” she recalls.

Friends called her to the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IKI RAS), where she worked for three years with renowned physicist Yury Halperin and studied the interaction of the Earth’s magnetosphere with the solar wind in the framework of the Interball project.

“These were very important years that shaped what I started to do later,” explains the scientist.

In 2003, Natalia defended her thesis and won the Russian President’s Award for young scientists, thanks to which she was able to buy a computer.

Buzulukova decided not to wait for interesting job offers and in the fall of 2006, she herself applied to NASA for a scholarship for young specialists with a degree. When a positive response came, Natalia was surprised, but in May 2007 moved to Washington and began working for the space agency under a contract through the University of Maryland. She was immediately offered a “competitive” salary, for which it was possible to rent housing in the US capital, “live normally” and attend scientific conferences.

Young specialists with a PhD degree, “post-docs” are the driving force of science in the USA and at NASA in particular, says Buzulukova: they are “energetic, inexpensive, but contribute greatly to the development of the scientific base.”

Buzulukova is engaged in basic research - she studies the Earth’s magnetosphere and geomagnetic storms, writes scientific articles, reviews of works by other scientists. She also belongs to a group of developers who are associated with "space weather".

A significant amount of time scientists in NASA have to spend on drawing up applications for funding:

“It’s necessary to prove that your work will be interesting and important: here nobody just gives money to anyone,” warns Buzulukov.

But she speaks about corporate culture with delight. NASA employees can attend numerous interest clubs - this is how lovers of ski, aviation, yoga, sport fishing, etc. find each other. There are many programs for working with schoolchildren and students who can see how the agency works and, under the guidance of scientists and engineers, take part in projects.

In 2016, NASA opened acceptance of applications for those who want to become astronauts, and more than 18 thousand people sent resumes - this is a record. One of the selection criteria was flight experience.

“What is the experience of flying young people in Russia? No And in the US, private aviation is developed and all the people believe that astronauts are heroes, ”says Buzulukova.

When NASA announces that it will be engaged in the conquest of outer space, it clarifies that this is “for the good of the Americans and all of humanity,” Natalia recalls.

“When Ilon Musk successfully launches another rocket, you too can be proud of it. It seems to me that this is correct, the cosmos unites, but does not divide people, ”she concludes.

Escape from the USSR

Photo: from the personal archive of Alexander Vasilkov

71 is a year-old leading researcher at the company. Science Systems and Applications Alexander Vasilkov admits that he still has not retired because his wife does not allow. His employer has been supplying NASA with a contract for more than 40 years, and Vasilkov has been working with Science Systems and Applications 16 years.

A graduate of the Faculty of Aerophysics and Space Research at MIPT, he had dreamed since childhood to become a scientist. The year was engaged in research of hypersonic gas dynamics in the head structure of Roskosmos TsNIIMash, then moved to the Department of Physical Mechanics at MIPT, where he worked for several years on remote sensing of the atmosphere from space.

The following 18 years Vasilkov was a senior researcher at the Institute of Oceanology. PPShirshov of the Russian Academy of Sciences and was engaged in sounding of the ocean from space.

“I had good ideas related to space, but they could not be implemented,” the researcher complains.

Using satellite data, he wanted to find out about the distribution of chlorophyll in the oceans and calculate the places where most fish live. Vasilkov received information from the State Research Center for the Study of Natural Resources.

“However, there was no data processing infrastructure in Russia at that time. In my opinion, even now they are not paying due attention to this, ”the scientist states.

Such infrastructure requires no less in terms of investments than building a satellite, he notes.

After the collapse of the USSR, difficult times began in the Vasilkov family, as in many others in the country: the prize of the Soros Foundation, which the scientist received, helped to survive. When Vasilkov was invited to work at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels to do sounding of the North Sea, he immediately agreed. There he created a group of three scientists who are still studying pollution of the coastal zone of Belgium.

The spouse did not want to return to Moscow, therefore Vasilkov continued to look for work abroad.

“In family life, the boss is the wife,” the scientist says with a smile.

Vasilkov sent out a resume and got a job at NASA as a contractor, he is engaged in remote sensing of the atmosphere and ocean using the meteorological satellite Suomi NPP.

“Unlike the Soviet Union, everything is mobile: money runs out, everyone leaves,” says Vasilkov.

Contractors do not have working contracts with an agency, so you can quit at any time, but “they can also be fired without a reason, which often happens.” When he announced to colleagues in Brussels that he got a job in the US, they first asked how long the contract was signed.

“When I said that there was no contract, they were very surprised: in Europe everyone signs up to be socially protected,” the scientist recalls.

The data that Vasilkov and his colleagues receive from satellites are also stored in the public domain. At the same time, many people at the agency are working to ensure that even unprepared people can use the information. In recent years, Vasilkov’s work has been associated with atmospheric pollution — automobile and industrial emissions and acid rain. On this and other topics a scientist wrote about 80 works that are published in scientific periodicals.

“The most polluted place on the planet is China. Most regions of Russia are clean, but I see Moscow as a huge red spot, ”says the scientist. This information could be useful for monitoring the state of the atmosphere in the country, but “no one in Russia is currently engaged in environmental monitoring,” Vasilkov summarizes.

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