With Mars in sight, a NASA engineer recounts his blessed journey

"It is rocket science."

Markeeva Morgan pauses, and a slight, half-smile grows across his face. His remark and well-timed delivery reveal a kind of wry wit, frankly, you don't expect from someone who's, well, actually a rocket scientist.

He's really more of a rocket engineer, or rocket geek, or rocket boss even.

No matter the title--and he has a doozy--Morgan, 37, is one among myriad NASA rocket scientists, mathematicians, technicians, welders, animators, modelers, architects, teachers, attorneys, accountants, truck drivers, painters, public/human relations specialists, program/product managers, videographers and more working now in Huntsville and around the nation to build a rocket designed to take us, yes, where no man has gone before: to Mars--which sits about 50 million miles from Earth, give or take and depending on the year. By contrast, the Moon (the farthest distance man has traveled thus far) sits an average of only 238,857 miles from Earth.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to do that math or to discern the monumental challenge facing the space agency, which hasn't launched a crewed mission from the United States since July 2011 when Atlantis, the last Space Shuttle, soared skyward for its final flight. The Space Shuttle program officially retired a month later, following 135 missions over 34 years.

At the Marshall Space Flight center in Huntsville, Morgan oversees a team developing the critical avionics components of the new Space Launch System's (SLS) core stage, a section that spans more than 200 feet tall and almost 28 feet in diameter and will contain the cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that fuel the four engines that will emit 512,000 pounds of thrust for eight minutes after takeoff and reach temperatures ranging from -423 to +6,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Avionics is the core stage's central nervous system, its brain. It is a byzantine mosaic of software, hardware, wires, cables that must ensure all parts of the SLS are operable and in accord.

The initial, uncrewed launch is scheduled for late 2018, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the rocket's various components will be shipped and assembled. But Morgan's team must be ready for testing next year, which is why he says it's already "silly season" in Huntsville.

"Our focus right now is finalizing and qualifying the designs of all the major avionic components," he shared one day recently in Huntsville. "Flight components, communications systems, navigation components. Qualifying means subjecting each of those designs to a series of strenuous tests, all more extreme than what we expect in actual use, to verify that they work as they're supposed to work. Meanwhile, we're also building the actual flight hardware to make sure it's available for the test rocket next year."

You might actually need a rocket scientist to decipher Morgan's actual job titles: Space Launch System Stages Avionics Hardware Subsystems Manager and the Stages Flight Termination System Integration Lead.

Behind those lengthy labels, however, and the complex nature of his occupation, is a man who has crafted a life by making the complex simple, by studiously--and excitedly--digesting the myriad components of any challenge, any decision, any opportunity before taking a judicious leap.

It is how, after growing up on a 13-acre farm in rural, rural Strayhorn, Mississippi ("In the sticks," he says), 13 miles from Coldwater High School, as one of 10 children to a disabled Vietnam veteran and his wife, he chose to remain at his struggling public school rather than accept a full scholarship to attend a prestigious boarding institution that emphasized the subjects he was most passionate about: math and science.

"As proud as I am to be from there, [Coldwater] lacked resources and some people left for better opportunities. Ultimately a huge contributor in my decision to stay was my wanting to somehow contribute to the reversal of that trend. Now, I have no idea whether I actually did but I feel like we so easily dismiss the value of a place or thing due to an opportunity at a new place."

It is how, despite being offered full scholarships to some of the most prestigious universities in the nation, he chose to attend the University of Mississippi, ignoring recruiters who tried to lure him with reminders of the institution's racist past (and present).

"I remember one day being overwhelmed by the process and the gravity of the decision. I spent a lot of time in the woods, seeing how far down the creek went and things like that. I went to one of the creeks I frequented and thought about it. This Mississippi kid had not been many places and I thought about what other universities were saying. I remember the revelatory moment and just looking around at how I'd grown up and that somehow this place that was being ridiculed was the same place that contributed to who I had become, the same person who was on the other end of those phone calls. I decided at that point I wanted to go to school in Mississippi.

It is how he even ultimately, finally and laboriously decided that a studious chemical engineering major at Ole Miss, Shaquinta Pickett, was the one.

"I had taken an electrical engineering class she had to take later, so she wanted to borrow my notes, which was a smart thing to do. I told her, almost joking, that I'd let her borrow them if she went out to dinner with me. At the time she was somewhat annoyed by me, so I partially said it just to annoy her. I didn't know it at the time, but she is extremely insistent on keeping promises, so months later she came to me and said, 'Let's get this over with.' The following summer, we went to dinner and didn't eat a bite. The conversation was magical. We left that restaurant with two plates full of cold food and drove around for hours talking. We played the game for months, refusing to believe what was obvious. We jockeyed and fought it and finally said this is it."

And it is how, after graduating from Ole Miss in 1997 and serving five years in the Navy, in a fulfilling capacity with the nuclear propulsion program, he decided to leave the service and move to Huntsville to work for NASA.

"My role at the time engaged all of the parts of me professionally--all of the areas of my skills set, stretching all of them. I was having a blast. It was the perfect job for me right then. My original thought was to stay an officer and retire an officer. Ultimately my decision to take off the uniform was one of my most difficult, but I did it to provide flexibility for my family. I try to be introspective. I try to make sure I understand what my priorities and values are. It doesn't make making the decision easier but it makes knowing what decision to make easier."

Morgan, even as a child, was interested in how things work. His father says Markeeva "always loved to use his mind."

"He was a big-time thinker," says Alfred Morgan, Jr. "Always tried to think his way out. He was a unique guy."

Young Markeeva didn't know that his burgeoning interest was essentially a career description for an engineer; he didn't even know such a thing existed until he saw George La Forge, whom long-time Star Trek fans will remember as chief engineer on the Enterprise-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation (portrayed by actor LaVar Burton). "He was just always solving problems, always leading the team to get more out of less."

While that role made Morgan aware of what an engineer was, he wasn't inspired to be one until he saw the film Apollo 13, also while in high school.

"The mission had not gone as planned and CO2 levels were increasing in the capsule because it was designed for two people to be in there not three, and the filters they had didn't fit into the scrubbers in the modules. There was a scene in which a team of engineers was in the room and one of them holds up the two filters and says: 'Hey, we gotta figure out how to make this fit into the holes designed for this, with nothing but this [all the stuff that was on the table.]' That's when I said, man, that's what I want to do."

Morgan did not walk blindly into Ole Miss. He remained steadfast in his decision to remain in the state that helped shape him, yet he was still a young African-American male, fully aware of the culture that helped shape him.

"The reality of the place is far better than the perception of the place. Not to suggest it's perfect; it still isn't. But the perception was heavily influenced by its past and perpetuated by members of Ole Miss community who, at the time, still believed in and lived by those old creeds so they continued to fuel that negative perception. My experience was that tthose perpetuating the negative perception did not necessarily represent the soul of the place and over the last 20 years that's shown itself to be true. We have a new creed: Our family is not perfect. There has been progress. Would I like to see more? Yes.

September 6, 2001. That was Morgan's first day at work in the Navy after leaving Ole Miss. Five days later, just after Shaquinta, his wife, dropped him off at work, two planes flew into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, another crashed into the Pentagon just a few miles away, and a fourth plummeted into a field in Stonycreek Township in Pennsylvania. Nearly 4,000 Americans were dead in a terrorist attack that redefined our nation.

That afternoon, Morgan's boss walked into his office and said: "The learning curve here is usually pretty steep, but yours is vertical." Then he walked out.

Morgan's job at the time was providing support for the nuclear fleet of submarines in the Atlantic. If there was a problem with the nuclear instrumentation, the men on board called him.

"The nuclear fleet sailed some of the sharpest, most academically highly-trained personnel in the U.S. military arsenal. Senior folks had been working on the ship 10-to-15 years. If they couldn't fix it, it's a gremlin already. So the answer was not: I just got here. We had folks doing the nation's business; they needed an answer."

The experience taught him the importance of being able to lead a team in the midst of the most critical of challenges "It was not a question of intelligence," he says. "It was about how we can get all the smart folks in a room and find an answer. It was sink or swim. That's how my career started."

It can be easy to forget about NASA. Without an awe-inspiring launch to capture our attention every few months, or even years, we move on, oblivious to the fact that, say, someone has been in space for the last 16 years, inhabiting the International Space Station, which sits just a bit farther from Earth (220 miles) as it is from Huntsville to Montgomery (190 miles).

The SLS may change that. Its ultimate mission is to take crews to Mars, but that will take years after the 2018 launch, years of bigger, more powerful rockets, and even smarter avionics.

The uncrewed SLS Block 1 being built now comprises new system and technologies layered upon the successes of past missions. It will produce 8.8 million pounds of thrust, 1 million more than the Space Shuttle. And it will be equipped to haul 70 tons of cargo, more than three times the Shuttle.

Should it succeed, the SLS Block 2, featuring even newer technologies, will be built to carry 143 tons of cargo and produce 9.2 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, enough to carry it, and its crew, into deep, deep space.

So don't tell Morgan or the many other working on the SLS that the allure of "space", and its importance, are largely lost upon current generations.

"By our very nature we are explorers, we are learners. We are working to expand the knowledge of mankind, of ourselves, our solar system, the universe. Everything we learn is to benefit humanity as a whole. The value is intangible and manifests itself tangibly at the same time. Many of the methodologies we have to develop to solve the problems we solve have benefits economically, medically and otherwise.

"We think the benefit of what we do is all around us."

There's a pretty intriguing fact I've failed to mention thus far. It has nothing to do with NASA, Navy nuclear submarines, Ole Miss or even a love story that now includes two young daughters, Mallory, 10, and Sydney, 7.

Alfred Morgan, Jr. is blind.

More appropriately, as Markeeva will tell you, he cannot see, having lost his sight due to something called Bechet's Syndrome, an autoimmune disease caused by damage to blood vessels that can wreak havoc on many parts of the body--including the eyes.

Alfred contracted it during his 11-month stint in Vietnam, which ended in February 1971. Not long after he returned, he began to feel pain in his eyes and gradually began to lose his sight. His fifth child was three months old when he lost his sight completely. He is now on full disability. The effect initially left him depressed.

"I thought I would not be able to do anything. One day I went on a walk and talked with God and asked him, Why me? He said, Why not you? That was the turnaround in my emotional state. I can't change my eyes but I can do my best as a blind person. With the help of wife and faith in God, I started changing what it means to be a blind person and training myself to do things differently as a sighted person."

In 1980, Alfred enrolled in a community college and ultimately earned a bachelor's degree in social work and a master's in counseling.

"Much to his chagrin," Markeeva begins, "he's never seen me."

He paused, but how does one react to the revelation that a father has never seen his child.

"It was supposed to be a joke," Morgan said with that same half-smile. "Guess it didn't work."

It was a challenge to explain that while his father had been blind since before Markeeva was born, he could not think of any "deficiency" he experienced because of it.

"He was able to visualize things in a way that's just amazing. A lot of my handiness, my mechanical and carpentry skills came from him. When preparing to build something, he gives me the dimensions. He travels more than I do. He's a serial entrepreneur. He has driven but not on the highway. That wouldn't be very wise. Did he teach me to fire a weapon? No. Probably not a good idea, either. In fact, my friends say they don't believe he's blind. He always said: You have a lane that was paved for you. You can choose how to navigate your lane or you can pull over and watch everyone drive in theirs. I never saw him pull over.

"One of the greatest lessons I learned from him is that sight is not required to have vision. He just can't see, and that's it."

"They tell me I'm acting blind to get a check," Alfred says with a laugh. "Not seeing [some of my kids] is no problem. I would love to have seen them, but it's not a big deal. I was able to work with them [in the garden] and help in their studies. We built a storage shed, and I told them how to do it."

Morgan, now that he's a father, says he doesn't see how his parents did it all. His maternal grandmother died when his mother, Celester, was still relatively young, so she helped raise her younger siblings while she had young children of her own.

"Sometimes I do the math," he says, "and I'm sure there was a decade when she may not have slept at all."

Each of Alfred and Celester's 10 children went to college. "They always had very high expectations, though they were not overt about it. I never heard them argue. The foundation they laid is phenomenal.

Morgan and his family are members of First Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville. As a child, he and his siblings were in church at least three days each week and he credits those days with providing the spiritual foundation that today makes him grateful and giving.

When he gathers with friends to watch football games or other social occasions, they each bring something--food or hygiene products, such as toothbrushes or soap--to donate to a local charity. "Enjoy your blessings, and let's share them," he says.

Each morning he sends the same message to his Twitter followers: Be Blessed and be a Blessing. It accompanies a motivational nugget, sometimes inspirsed by from the daily devotional he reads.

"I just feel so blessed and I don't have to feel guilty about it," he says. "To borrow phrasing from Joshua, as for me and my house, we teach our children they don't have to apologize for their blessings but they do have to be grateful. What are you gonna do with your blessing?"

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