More Awards

More Awards

L to R: Flight Director Dina Contella - Astronaut Tim Kopra - Branelle - Former Astronaut and current Center Director Ellen Ochoa

My wife comes home with awards and things like that all the time.  My usual policy is to make fun of her.  I don't want her to start realizing she's pretty cool and get the idea in her head that she could do better than me.  Sometimes she even gets medals - the government likes to award medals to civilian employees just like they do military members.  I have a number of medals myself that I don't / can't display so when she comes home with one I pull one of my own out - you know, just keeping her grounded.  Truth be told, Branelle is an extremely hard working and talented person and she deserves every accommodation she gets, and then some (I'm not telling her that, but it's true).

I never really blog about her accomplishments so I thought I would write a short one about her most recent award.  Last week we had to go to a function at Space Center Houston where the Center and the Crew recognize teams and individuals that made outstanding contributions to the most recent NASA increment, which in this case was 47.  There were three individuals that were awarded for this increment, Nel being one of them.  This is what she got:

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center

Superior Achievement Award

Presented to

Branelle Rodriguez

For outstanding Mission Evaluation Room leadership during the safe deployment of the Bigalow Expandable Activity Module.

   
Basically she blew up a balloon in space...and it took 72 hours to do it.  That's what I tell her she did, but in truth it's never been done before and it really was a big deal with a lot of problem solving along the way.  She was working through the night for a few days and I hardly saw her (you'd think space would operate on CST, but noooo). 

After the ceremony we went to dinner and Nel said she might frame this one because it had the word "Superior" in it.  I made some awesome Star Trek:  Wrath of Kahn reference that she didn't get ("Your's.....is.....superior") and then continued with my ribeye.  

My wife actually is pretty cool - just don't tell her that!