AEDC's John Claybrook has his sights set on the stars

  • Published
  • By Philip Lorenz III
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  For John Claybrook, seeing the movie, "Apollo 13" was a pivotal moment when the now 24-year-old aerospace engineer knew a career in science lay ahead for him.

He is AEDC's most recent PALACE Acquire program participant and is currently helping with projects being conducted at Arnold's Space and Missiles Ground Test Complex.

The PALACE Acquire program was established as an avenue to replenish the civilian work force with entry-level college graduates for future civilian careers with the Air Force.

One of Claybrook's mentors, Jim Burns, AEDC's lead for space chambers testing, said his protégé is getting the opportunity for hands-on work, which is exactly what the Lexington, Ky., native was wanting.

"Currently, I am directly involved with two sensor tests," Claybrook, who arrived at AEDC in July, said. "We have a sensor test that just started in 10V, and then another sensor test scheduled to start in January in 7V. I have been involved with the 7V test since coming onboard in the phases of planning. I'm also excited about future prospects involving electric propulsion testing and space environment testing."

Claybrook is still in the early stages of being mentored at AEDC and thoroughly enjoys the work environment.

The North Carolina State University graduate is learning how the test processes work at AEDC and earlier in the year helped with an experiment conducted in AEDC's Characterization of Combined Orbital Surface Effects (CCOSE) chamber. The project involved subjecting material samples of Kapton, mylar, sapphire and fused quartz to similar conditions that those materials were exposed to in low earth orbit during an International Space Station (ISS) mission that ended in 2009.

"I did some comparative spectral analysis for the recent International Space Station experiment," he said, adding that he did not work directly with the chamber itself.

"We're putting him with the ATA guys; he's going to be part of writing the test plans, being [involved with] the tests and doing the analysis afterwards," Burns said. "AEDC had a lot of great minds back in the early days and that's what we want to do - pass it [the expertise and experience] on to the next generation. John is a great guy, eager to go out and do this stuff. We need more people like that on the government side because frankly, you cannot manage this kind of work if you don't understand it. He's on the ball."

Claybrook said he had never heard of AEDC before attending a career fair shortly after graduating from college.

"The first bite I got from it [the career fair] was for a position out at Peterson AFB, Colo.," he recalled. "I was actually selected as an alternate for that one, but I didn't get it. It was an orbital analyst position. Then a couple of months later; I got a bite on this one.

"That is when I started looking into what Arnold AFB was all about and I am actually excited that I missed out on the orbital analyst [job] and I think this [position at AEDC] was a better fit for what I wanted to do."

Claybrook said he vividly recalls when he first drove up to the gate at AEDC to go through his work orientation.

"[I was thinking] 'Oh man, this is heaven...all the big toys these engineers get to play with,'" he said. "My overall first impression was there is a lot to do here."

During that first day, Claybrook learned about the full range of testing that is conducted at AEDC and said that in particular made working at the base exciting for him.

"Next fall I'll go to grad school and depending on the summer course they're offering me I'll have to switch back and forth and essentially then I'll only have three semesters to then complete a masters and then I come [here] back for a third year and then at that point that will propel me into a GS12 position," he said.

When he's not focusing on his job at AEDC or his academic studies for his graduate degree, Claybrook enjoys sports.

"I played baseball all of my childhood," he recalled. "If it involves a ball I'm down, [whether it's] baseball, basketball, ping pong, soccer, flag football or golf."

Claybrook said he is "blessed by God to have a good job, supportive family and be in a position to continue my education."