(One) thing that helps tremendously is getting into the High Bay (at KSC) or going into the System Test Complex, getting close to the testing and close to the hardware… And it's thrilling to see hardware with this much complexity come together and get checked out as fast as it has. The pace is just fascinating to watch. And for an engineer there's nothing more fascinating that getting down there, close to the hardware and watching it work the way it's supposed to work.

You think about all the effort that went in, all the way from the initial conceptual work, through the detail board design, through the subsystem builds and tests, and you realize it's quite an accomplishment when you see those things come together, and then the hardware works the way it was supposed to work. Those are the things which keep me rolling." (interview at KSC, May 23, 2003)