At first glance, the office of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Director Michael Watkins seems to be all about Mars — at least when it comes to recent additions to Watkins’ extensive collection of JPL spacecraft models. The entire collection, inherited from previous directors, represents more than 50 years of space exploration and research.
A mini-version of JPL’s Mars Rover Curiosity, which landed on that faraway planet in 2012, joins the more recent Mars InSight lander, dedicated to researching Mars’ deep interior, that landed on Nov. 26.
But the first thing Watkins will tell you is that work at JPL, a federally funded lab with an annual operating budget of almost $3 billion, and staffed and managed for NASA by Pasadena’s Caltech, is as much about Earth as any other planet.
Watkins said JPL is best known for building robotic spacecraft for exploring outer space, but some of those craft collect data from Earth as well.“We do a lot of earth science too; it’s not just up on Mars,” said Watkins, an engineer and scientist who has led JPL since July 2016.
Large windows in his office at JPL’s La Cañada-Flintridge headquarters look out to the San Gabriel Mountains. “(JPL research) helps California with water management, crop health, and eco-stress,” Watkins continued. “Are we irrigating most productively for our agriculture? These are things that directly help people.
“Sometimes there’s the view that this is only something for the next generation, that it’s way out there,” Watkins added. “But a lot of what we do has direct applications economically and for people’s lives.”
Watkins observed that most people associate the NASA space program with NASA’s Washington, D.C., headquarters or Space Center Houston, immortalized by the famous phrase “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” spoken by real-life astronauts and altered to the present tense for the 1995 movie “Apollo 13.”
Watkins calls JPL a hidden gem in space exploration, and is never happier than when Pasadena has problems to chew on. “We have a motto, ‘Dare Mighty Things’ — that’s a Teddy Roosevelt quote,” the executive said. “We want to solve hard problems, the hardest problems in space.”
At JPL, Watkins oversees 6,000 employees, comprised of 4,500 engineers and scientists, and 1,500 support personnel. His passion for applying engineering know-how to scientific problems allows him to bring practical-minded engineers and “crazy college people” to the same table.
Watkins said JPL’s research mission happily coexists with commercial efforts such as Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX). “We need these companies. Part of their business plan may be to launch people, but part of their business plan is to build satellites, build rockets,” he said. “We use SpaceX for some of our launches … whatever industry can do, we want them to do it, transfer our knowledge to them, and we move onto the next thing.”
