Why Do We Explore Space?
by Dr Charles Elachi
I applied to a number of universities in the
that time I was very much into movies... So that’s
United States... I had no idea what my future was
how I decided to go to California, and to go to
going to be – except that I was passionate about
Caltech.
science, and I liked to work on scientific and
Then I found out after I got to Caltech that the
engineering problems... I was accepted into a number
Jet Propulsion Laboratory is part of Caltech – it’s part
of universities, so I had to decide which one to
of NASA, but it’s managed by Caltech. I had heard
choose. I looked at a map and I found that Caltech is
about JPL before, because I was very much interested
in Los Angeles, or Pasadena, next to Hollywood –
in space – I remember when Sputnik was launched,
and I thought, “wow, that’s a great place to go!” I
and all the activities that were happening in space,
thought I would be seeing movie stars every day – at
and the JPL was the main NASA centre for actually