Michael Grabois

Rocket Scientist

"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via" - There is no easy way from the earth to the stars.

Born at an early age. Rocket scientist, aerospace engineer, simulated astronaut, Texas Longhorn, Parrothead, comic reader, craps shooter, night owl, scuba diver, nomad, Springsteen groupie, world traveler, scruffy-looking nerf-herder, burrito enthusiast, aloha-shirt wearer, Knight Who Says Ni, international scofflaw. Been to 48/50 states, 30/200 countries, 6 continents. I can ask for a beer in three languages.

I used to be able to fly and operate the Space Shuttle, but they went and retired it before I could go into space (that's me in the Shuttle Mission Simulator below). Once got detained by the police in Prague. Once got pushed out of an airplane. Once met Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, told him to Walk This Way. Once had my picture taken aboard the Russian space station Mir. I was even an uncredited background extra in a Natalie Portman movie. True stories!

For over 20 years I worked at NASA where I trained Space Shuttle astronauts for fun & profit, and got to work in Mission Control. Then I spent 3 years in the Oil & Gas business and a year driving for Uber and Lyft, now I'm back in the space business. I work with the astronauts and flight controllers involved in spacewalks from the International Space Station and am helping to shape SPACEWALKS ON THE MOON! Over my career I developed skills like Controls & Systems training, console operations, human factors, cockpit display design, graphical user interface design, knowledge capture projects, technical writing, and curriculum development.

Want to find me?
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Stuff I do for fun:
The Legion Omnicom (Blogging comics)
European Grand Tour 2011 (Blogging my Europe trip)
Going Places (Blogging general travel)
NASA's Surfin' Chili cookoff team, 1990-2011
Getty Images stock photo portfolio
Member of The Legion of Substitute Podcasters since 2014
Beers Around the World on Instagram
My Untappd portfolio

Stuff I do for work:
My space program résumé (pdf): Space Program
Here's my Software and User Interface Portfolio

Stuff I've published or presented:
Goulding, C.; Grabois, M.; Rico, M. (Oct 2021). "The History of EVA Safety at NASA", to be presented at the 11th International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS) Conference: Managing Risk in Space in Osaka, Japan. [cancelled]
Grabois, M. (May 2015). "Space Food - Eat Whatever You Want and Never Gain Weight!", presented at Comicpalooza 2015 in Houston, TX.
Grabois, M. (2012). There Are Good Reasons Houston Did Not Get a Retired Space Shuttle. In M. Haerens (Ed.), Opposing Viewpoints: NASA (pp. 112-116). Farmington Hills, MI: Greenhaven Press.
Fitzpatrick, M.; Mattes, G.; Grabois, M.; Griffith, H. (Sept. 2011). NASA/MOD Operations Impacts from Shuttle Program Control , presented at the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics Space 2011 Conference in Los Angeles, CA.
Grabois, M. (April 15, 2011). Guest commentary: Don t blame NASA or politics for an orbiter-less Houston . http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2011/04/guest-commentary-dont-blame-nasa-or-politics-for-an-orbiter-less-houston/
Grabois, M. (April/May 2011). Apollo: Learning From the Past, For the Future , published in Acta Astronautica. [pdf download at sci-hub]
Grabois, M. (Oct. 2009). Apollo: Learning From the Past, For the Future , presented at the 60th International Astronautical Congress in Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
Grabois, M. (Jan. 2009). "Apollo Lessons Learned Project". In 2008, NBC/Universal was looking into the possibility of including some of the presentations from our Apollo Lessons Learned project on its then-upcoming "Apollo 13" Blu-ray (which for various reasons ended up not happening). But NASA had to put them on the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS), stripped of author and contact info, in order for NBCU to be able to obtain them. The listed author of all these Apollo documents is the person who was the liaison between NASA and NBCU. Click the above link for all of them, these are the ones I did.
Grabois, M. (Feb. 1995) "Countdown!", an account I wrote in about what it's like to work on console in Mission Control during a space shuttle launch.
Appelbaum, S; Carroll, D.; Grabois, M.; Hudson, C.; Lennard, J.; Pinon, E.; Regester, M.; Roesset, P., collectively as "MARCO: The Mars Company" (May 1988). "Design of a fast crew transfer vehicle to Mars", the final product of my senior group research project class ASE 274L at the University of Texas at Austin


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