." From my earliest childhood, air travel had regularly spellbinded me. I endured in the boonies and the farmlands, so I failed to have next-door neighbors to go as well as enjoy with. If I had not been functioning, I was entrusted to my very own units, and also typically, I will simply be actually mesmerized due to the creatures and in particular, the predators that I will view." To me, they stood for a flexibility of some kind or one more. These birds and the perspective they have-- they can easily take in a great deal. Therefore, coming from that point on, I knew I desired to be associated with trip and also aeronautics." I [appreciated] all things trip, all things spaceflight. I could not obtain sufficient of it. I became an enthusiastic audience, whereas in the past, I wasn't a lot of a visitor. I could not get enough material to review my heroes coming from tour and area. They became my good example and the course that they took involved, at some time or yet another, a fairly extensive education and dedication to carry out properly academically, actually, or athletically. Therefore, I tossed on my own in to that entire kind of mindset." When I was actually benefiting the Aviation service, I had the ability to soar as well as work on plane that I would fantasize around, checking out in the journals Air travel Week and Area Innovation. Below they are, appropriate before me." ... Thus, my occupation has been actually as close as achievable to that of a flight exam developer. And then, right on the heels of being actually astounded by atmospheric air travel, functioning in individual spaceflight has set me over the Moon.".-- Dr. Donald Mendoza, Principal Engineer, NASA Engineering & Safety Facility, NASA's Ames Proving ground.Image Credit Scores: NASA/Dominic HartInterviewer: NASA/Thalia Patrinos.Have a look at some of our other Faces of NASA.