Houston, we have a podcast. Welcome to the official podcast of the NASA Johnson Space Center,

episode 305, the Flight Directors Flight Director. I'm Gary Jordan, I'll be your host today.

On this podcast, we're bringing the experts, scientists, engineers, astronauts,

all to let you know what's going on in the world of human spaceflight and more.

In Mission Control Houston here at the Johnson Space Center, you have some of the brightest minds

overseeing the complicated choreography that is human spaceflight. Many have seen the images

in video of Mission Control during the Apollo 11 moon landing or the famous Apollo 13 mission

that returned three astronauts home safely from a mission to the moon after a critical hardware

failure. And these images are hard to forget. Mission Control can be a very dynamic place with

different conversations happening inside your headset and it can be especially chaotic during

critical moments and problem solving. But at the center of all the action is the flight director,

with the role of directing the team's responses, asking for their expertise and recommendations

and proceeding with important decisions, all within a moment's notice. It takes a special person

to take on this responsibility. Now imagine the person that has the responsibility to lead 31

of these individuals. That person is Emily Nelson, now the chief flight director here at the

Johnson Space Center. And we're lucky to have her on this episode to learn about her journey

and pick her brain on what it takes to lead some of the most talented people

into the next era of human spaceflight. Let's get started.

Emily Nelson, thank you so much for coming on Houston wave of podcasts.

So excited to be here. Great to have you. How has the job been chief of chief flight director

and you've had the role for for a little bit now? How you feel settled in? You feel good?

Yeah, that first year is always you know a little bit figuring out what the job is,

...