Student starts second internship at NASA

Engineering major Amanda Stark aimed for the stars and landed pretty close, earning an internship with NASA in Langley, Virginia. 

Stark, who is earning a bachelor's degree in product design and manufacturing engineering, works with hardware that is bound for space at the System Integration and Test branch. 

Using a vacuum chamber, Stark and her team recreate the harsh conditions of high orbit. “We want to make sure the equipment is going to work on the hot side of the Earth and the cold side,” Stark said. “We run the equipment through the test to make sure it will actually work in Earth’s orbit.”

Stark also worked on a balloon launch project called Rad-X. The purpose of the project is to study the harmfulness of the radiation levels commercial aircraft are exposed to at high altitude. “They asked me to go down and actually work the launch with them, so that was pretty slick,” she said. 

So what does a day in the life of a NASA intern look like?

“It’s kind of funny, because it all depends on what happens when I walk in,” Stark said. “I fill in wherever they need me, which is perfectly fine with me because that means every day I learn something.” 

Stark said her time with NASA has helped her better understand the concepts she learned in her engineering classes at Grand Valley. 

The 2015 fall semester is Stark’s second semester with NASA. She interned with the space agency in winter 2015 as well. Both times she joined various teams, helping conduct tests and preparing hardware for launch.

Stark’s journey began when she applied for the internships on NASA’s website. She didn't receive the position she applied for, but her application stayed in the system and eventually NASA contacted her about the possibility of coming to Langley for a semester-long program.

Stark said working at NASA has been her dream for some time.

“I grew up with a sister who is an astronomer, so NASA was a word that came up on a daily basis when I was a kid," she said. "This idea of taking science and pushing forward to see how we can improve the world is so appealing.” 

While Stark’s position seems like a great fit, her path to NASA was hardly a straight shot.

“My first degree from Grand Valley was actually in fine art,” she said. “With the type of art I was making, people kept saying I must have studied engineering, but I didn’t. People said it so much that I thought I should actually go do it.”

Stark believes that working with NASA will allow her to combine her love of art and engineering.

“I wanted to go on and help scientists see their research become reality,” she said. “That was my whole goal in getting my degree in engineering. Ending up here with an internship with NASA was ideal for fulfilling that idea of why I wanted to go back to earn an engineering degree.”