QUESTION:
What inspired you to get involved with the Airborne Telescope?

ANSWER from Juan Rivera on November 4, 1995:

 I started taking flying lessons when I was about 16 and I got interested in Amateur Radio about the same time.  I've always thought the perfect job would be something that allowed me to get involved in both areas at once.   But I had never heard of the Kuiper Airborne Observatory or any other plane like it until I read an article in the paper one day about the KAO.  Once I realized that there were folks who worked on electronics and flew on a NASA research aircraft as part of their work, I started trying to get a job in that area.  It took me six years but finally I learned of an 
opening, applied, and was hired.

The job has been everything I thought it would be.  I work with a great 
bunch of people, get to fly on a very special kind of airplane, and 
have a hand in doing something really interesting that may advance our 
knowledge of the universe.  Sometimes it's an awfull lot of hard work 
but it's always interesting.