The Sky is Not the Limit

Flying in ZeroG. Photo courtesy ZeroG

Journey of a female Chaldean aerospace engineer

By Sarah Kittle

When talking with Diana Alsindy, an aerospace engineer who leads a team of engineers building one of the next rockets to the moon, you can hear her enthusiasm for the subject matter of space. A self-described “expert of the system of fluid systems,” Alsindy literally works in a rocket factory.

For a young girl growing up in Iraq, “rocket,” was a bad word. In Arabic, “rocket” and “missile” use the same word. So how did she end up working on rockets? It’s a good story.

Every morning, Diana wakes up at 6 am and heads to the “manufacturing complex” in Florida. “That’s what we call the rocket factories,” explains Alsindy. Her day starts in the office where she checks her email and responds to any outstanding requests, then she heads to the factory floor where her team is integrating the vehicle that will eventually be launched into space.

Creating the vehicle is a team effort, and Alsindy stresses that communication is probably the most important skill for an engineer like her. The people who don’t do well as engineers are the ones who can’t work with a team and can’t communicate, she says. “It’s not math, it’s not science, it’s not how nice you are. It’s being able to communicate.”

Her dad speaks multiple languages but growing up in Iraq, Diana had little cause or opportunity to speak English. Although her father brought home books on English from his travels to places like Dubai, she only had rudimentary skills in the language herself. “It was so minimal and so introductory that when I came to the U.S., it was very difficult for me to operate like a regular student.” ESL classes helped.

Diana is a born leader, a skill that was demonstrated every summer of her youth. “I remember so many events where I’m in a summer camp and I want to lead and I want to speak and address people,” Diana remembers. She enjoyed public speaking and writing so much that her teenage years were full of blogs on computer science, religion, and photography. That definitely helped with developing English speaking and writing skills.

Diana is currently working on New Glenn, a “heavy lifter” next-generation orbital booster vehicle developed by Blue Origin and named after NASA astronaut John Glenn, who was the first American to orbit Earth.

Blue Origin is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ private space company and its plans for New Glenn include placing manned and unmanned payloads into Earth’s orbit. It is designed to be able to reuse the first stage of the two stages of booster. The $2.5 billion project is set to launch this month. Blue’s long-standing mission: “We envision millions of people living and working in space for the benefit of Earth.”

New Glenn is a very large rocket, and according to Alsindy, “a huge achievement for humanity.”

Diana became a manager at Blue Origin about two years ago. Since then, she’s had to hire and build a team, training and mentoring them. “They always say, ‘representation matters,’ and when you’re sitting in this chair, you don’t always realize your potential,” Alsindy shared. “Sometimes, someone needs to point it out to you.”

She wouldn’t have even thought of applying for a managerial position had someone not asked her why she wasn’t a manager yet. “I probably wouldn’t have joined the industry this aggressively if someone didn’t see a potential in me,” she states.

One of her first mentors was in high school. “I used to be a photographer,” she says. She borrowed thousands of dollars in equipment from the photography lab in high school and has always been interested in photography and design. She stayed in contact with that teacher through college. “I wanted to show him where I’m at,” she says.

Her math teacher was one of her most prominent mentors and encouraged Diana to join clubs at University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She joined two “rocket clubs” and that led to “really cool internships.” That’s why she always advises students to join student clubs. “If there are no clubs in your school, create one,” she said. “My club was founded by a guy in my class.”

UCSD was the first university to 3D print rocket engines and test them using metal, which is very complex. The club had NASA mentors. Diana led the team for three years. “When you come out of school and you’re 22 and you’ve already led a team and you’ve already built a rocket,” says Alsindy, “you’re still above average from the regular student who’s graduating with a bachelor’s degree in engineering.”

With that on her resume, Alsindy garnered internships at NASA, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing, along with some startups in the space industry. Her favorite was with Virgin Orbit and Richard Branson. She was a Brooklyn’s Fellow, a fellowship for women in space. Her mentor was a full-blown astronaut. “It was so fabulous,” says Alsindy. “So amazing that I got to work on a rocket hands-on that early in my career.” She stayed there for three and half years.

Although she saw the Apollo missions on TV when she was young and was fascinated by them, she never dreamed she would be able to work as a rocket engineer herself. When she came to the United States, she discovered NASA and deep space exploration and by her own description, became obsessed.

When choosing her major in college, Alsindy was unaware of the versatility of aerospace engineering, so she chose chemical engineering, which she thought provided more opportunities. But then she started reading about stories of women who were building NASA habitats on Earth and became fascinated.

“Part of me thinking I would fit in is because I saw other women doing it,” she said. “I have a lot of friends who have been to space but very few are women. There are only 100 women that have been to space in the history of mankind.”

Diana believes it is imperative that parents and teachers become mentors who tell children about opportunities they may not know exist. ‘Sometimes you don’t see yourself in the picture until someone else sees you there,” she says.

Working in a male dominated industry is challenging. “Generally speaking, it is intimidating,” says Alsindy. “You have to turn the tables and be the intimidator.” Gaining the confidence to overcome the feeling of intimidation takes time. Alsindy had to look at herself and her behaviors: “The way I speak, the way I write emails, the way I conduct myself, even the way I think about myself…”

She has been working in the field for a decade now, and once she started seeing herself as an expert, that’s when the praise and promotions started coming to her. “You’re surrounded by very smart people and just naturally there aren’t many women here, so you always feel like you’re out of place. Imposter Syndrome is huge,” says Alsindy. “But that’s why you have mentors around. You have a community that supports you and reminds you that you are exactly where you need to be.”

Every day is a challenge. There are many components to building and launching a rocket. Sometimes it is as simple as the weather. There is a lot of physics involved, and most rockets don’t launch successfully the first time. There are hundreds of sensors on the rocket that will give meaningful data that needs to be extrapolated and analyzed. When your car needs oil, a sensor will tell you, but the car will still drive. “You don’t get that margin with rockets,” says Alsindy.

When asked if anything is happening in the industry that excites her, Alsindy replied, “Oh my God! Just yesterday, SpaceX conducted the first civilian spacewalk, and this is history being made!”

Alsindy hosts a website called The Arabian Stargazer. “It’s basically a bilingual science communication platform,” she explains. It initially targeted Arab youth but has grown significantly in the last five years. “Women building rockets and Iraqi women building rockets seems like a very weird and odd thing to say, and not many people have done it,” says Alsindy. “That’s exactly my mission. I want to normalize it just like any other career.

“Building rockets is becoming as needed as building cars so it’s important for us to raise the next generation to be part of STEM and pursue these careers.” She wants to see more youth from the Middle East represented in this field. Mesopotamians were the pioneers of astronomy and math. “We were the originals,” says Alsindy. “We were the OG’s.”

People who have been to space often talk about the “overview effect,” and how the Earth has no borders from space. When asked if she had aspirations to go into space herself, Diana answered, “If anybody would sponsor me, it’s definitely on the agenda, yes!”

Diana just turned 30 and is really looking forward to this next new age of human spaceflight. “You really can reach for the stars,” says Alsindy. “Humans are naturally curious and natural explorers. There’s so much out there in space we haven’t discovered yet. There are billions of stars and billions of galaxies just waiting to be explored. I don’t think any day will be boring in space.”