The Origami NASA Engineer

A few weeks ago I had a visit with a NASA engineer. A friend of my wifes from high school. He’s an engineer that works on the air traffic control systems that the FAA uses. He’s also a marathon runner and a single father of twin 11 yr old boys. A great guy. A very active and a very creative mind. Highly intelligent. That should be a given. He’s a NASA engineer.  

The reason. Bring him up in is because during our tour of Disney we got on the topic of creative thinking. Disney seems to bring out the best in peoples creative thinking. Imagine that. He was curious about the work I do, drawing smiles. I was extremely curious about the work that he was doing in his little corner of NASA. He is one of the engineers that works on the systems in air traffic control operations.  Forecasting and planning years ahead in the safety of aviation, really interesting stuff and of course most of everything he said was way over my head. Still my imagination could see the idealistic visions that he shared with the rest of his NASA family. 

One of the coolest things I learned is that for down time and stress release that he is into,  aside from running marathons, he is also a master at the art of origami. That’s that.  I said origami. When you think about this it makes perfect sense. A NASA engineer playing with the art of folding paper.  The instinctive mathematics that goes into his creations. The planning, the per-conceived visions that it takes to turn a simple piece of paper into something clever and interesting. Recently NASA launched a new living quarters to the space station. Guess what? It was folded up inside a payload capsule. Then released into space and unfolded effortlessly to its full size and then easily installed in place on the space station.  Origami on the largest scale imaginable created by your local origami artists at NASA.  

All of the energy for satellites and the space station are generated by solar panels. Huge unfolding wings of solar panels.  That when switched on, systematically unfold into their enormous size and instantly become fully operational, generating all the power they need.  So to hear this NASA engineer brag about his master origami skills was just a wonderful example of genius ability and creative thinking to me. The bonus is that he has passed on his artistic skills to his twin 11 year old boys.   

He and the twins will pass time at restaurants, in lines at movies or in Disney, in the lines for attractions.  Together they will kill time by creating origami critters and little people then leave them n places all over the theme parks, restaurants, bathrooms and any unsuspecting public places for other pope to discover. Passing along their creative magic to others. Little magical treasures.  This is something after my own heart. I just love it.  

Imagine if you will. Your standing in line at the airport waiting for the TSA and you notice sitting on top of the little stand that you throw all your liquids into, a little origami man made of a metallic checked black and red paper waving  at you.   It is a good chance this NASA engineer or one of his twin sons were there before you and wanted to leave someone like you a little unsuspecting magical moment. 

​Isn’t that a great example of passing the creative magic along?  It certainly is a great example of using your down time in a positive creative way.  If you have any similar ways of creatively killing time or relieving stress, I’d like to here from you?  Are any of you master origami craftsmen?  Share your stories with me, I’d love to hear them.  Please and thank you and have a creative day.