Tiera Fletcher, NASA rocket scientist, appears on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me

Most of us are by now familiar with the movie Hidden Figures, about how three black female mathematicians working for NASA did heroic deeds involving Mercury, Gemini, and ultimately Apollo 11. The move is a layered psyop, since, as most readers here know, Apollo 11 was merely a rocket ditched in the ocean,  no human leaving low-earth orbit, much less setting foot on the moon. Ergo, no one did the complicated math needed to plot the trajectory, though I cannot say how complicated it is. However, no one, white, black or any other race did that math. I do not discriminate! It did not need to be done.

It’s a sophisticated ruse, however, because now, in addition to being Apollo deniers, we are also racists. This has to have entered into the sophisticated calculations of those planners behind the fake Apollo program in how they deal with critics and disbelievers – “Set them on their heels by making them defend themselves as bigots too!” They are doubling down.

This came to mind as I listened to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, a weekly NPR podcast that is often delightfully funny. This week’s interview was with Tiera Fletcher, said to be an African-American who is a key player in designing the alleged rocket ship that will allegedly take astronauts to Mars.

I transcribed the interview for your benefit. I leave it to the reader to form his own conclusions. I will see you in the comments below.

[“WWDTM” is one of either the host Peter Segel, or three panelists, Paula Poundstone, Roxanne Roberts, and Jordan Carlos.]

WWDTM: Tiera Fletcher grew up in Atlanta and wanted to be a rocket scientist. Most of us give that up once we learned it involved math. I but she took to it. In fact, she went to MIT and is now, at 24 years old, one of the lead engineers building the rocket that will hopefully take some of us to Mars. Tiera Fletcher welcome to Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.

Fletcher: Thank you.

WWDTM: So before we get to your current job, did I get that right, that you wanted to be a rocket scientist from very young age?

Fletcher:  Yes from the age 11 I decided I wanted to be an aerospace engineer.

WWDTM: What inspired you to do that?

Fletcher: I actually had a program that’s my elementary school that introduced students to the fundamentals of aerospace engineering. I know that’s ridiculous. But, since the fourth grade, I wanted to be an aerospace engineer because of that program.

WWDTM: Wow, I love that! You went to MIT – that was a pretty impressive thing – and we’re told you graduated with a 5.0 average?

Fletcher: Yes. It was a very interesting time.

WWDTM: As far as we knew, the scale goes up to four. So how did you manage that?

Fletcher: So my parents always encouraged me to just reach beyond what’s expected of you. So I just worked hard, worked, oh my God, so many hours, late nights, and I just made it happen.

WWDTM: You just made so many parents feel like crap.

WWDTM: So you were like a nerd at MIT, which is already nerd heaven.

Fletcher: I tried to keep a good balance. I was involved in different student organizations – many of the cultural groups, the Black Students Union of MIT University, and also an African dance team. I tried to mix it up a little bit.

WWDTM: You probably understood the dynamics of the movement, which is almost cheating.

Fletcher: Exactly.

WWDTM: Did you say to the rest of the team like “no, you need a 25° angle at the knee?”

Fletcher: All of this.

WWDTM: Kids maybe drew airplanes and rocket ships or may be made paper airplanes and models, but you were not satisfied. You wanted to make them out of steel, and make them fly.

Fletcher: Exactly, and I wanted them to be pink, for sure pink. I’m still working on that part.

WWDTM: You were recruited by Boeing, right out of school, right? You went to work for them before you even graduated?

Fletcher: Correct. Yes.

WWDTM: So tell us what your job is.

Fletcher: So in I am a rocket structural engineer. What that means is that I design various parts of the rocket, analyze those parts, and I’m also doing manufacturing engineering as well to get all of those parts together into the rocket that you’ll see.

WWDTM: Because you’re a girl they did make you do the curtains?

Fletcher: Right. Yeah. I’m very happy that they did not make me do that.

WWDTM: So you’re actually designing the rocket engines. And everybody told us that the rocket that you are specifically working on is the one that’s gonna go to Mars. Is that correct?

Fletcher: That’s correct. First will be going to the moon, per the most recent charge from our vice president.

WWDTM: Oh, are you taking him to the moon?

WWDTM: Is it like a pit stop, to hit the moon before to Mars? What’s going on there?

Fletcher: We will be creating a NASA gateway and in order to get ready for longer missions such as Mars by establishing a habitat on the moon.

WWDTM: Right. You’re gonna do that first and then you want to go toMars from there.

WWDTM: Do you personally care about Mars?

Fletcher: I do. I do. I find it to be very exciting, just the point of exploring the unknown.

WWDTM: Are you guys going to go get the Rover back?

Fletcher: We could pick that up. We have to figure out payload…

WWDTM: It would be nice of us to clean up our messes.

WWDTM: You are a rocket scientist, literally. There is a part that is the absolute cliché for extraordinarily smart person. You know the phrase, “it’s not rocket science.” Do you intimidate people when they find out what you do for a living?

Fletcher: Well, a little bit I guess by the title, but I assure them… Many people can be rocket scientists.

WWDTM: That’s just not true. I mean, very pretty to think so, and I want everybody to be encouraged. But no!

WWDTM: Your husband is an astrophysicist, right?

Fletcher: He’s a rocket propulsion test engineer.

WWDTM: So you build the rockets, and he tests them?

Fletcher: Exactly. It’s so crazy, yes.

WWDTM: Wait a minute. That seems to me that it might provide cause for tension. What if you build an engine, he tests it, and it blows up? What’s dinner at home going to be like that night?

Fletcher: I have to be really careful with my designs because I know that my husband is going to be testing them. It’s a lot of pressure.

WWDTM: You ever say like, “Do you want more coffee?” And then “What’s your capacity?”

Fletcher: We do have those moments, unfortunately.

WWDTM: You mean like you do nerd humor with each other?

Fletcher: We have a ton of nerd humor.

WWDTM: So you at 24 are already designing the rockets that’s going to go to Mars. I imagine that would be the pinnacle of other people’s careers. So do you have goals, something to do before your finished?

Fletcher: I do. Of course I have my passion for rockets, but also I want to explore the side of planes as well.

WWDTM: So you want to design airplanes? Any particular kind of airplane?

Fletcher: I do love military aircraft. That was the exact type of aircraft that I fell in love with at first.

WWDTM: You were an 11-year-old girl and you loved, like, fighter jets?

Fletcher: Yes, like the F 35, B2, oh man.

WWDTM: I’m just imagining you at the age of 11, like playing with your friends, and they’re playing with their dolls, and your jet comes in and strafes the tea party.

WWDTM: Yhe F35 is the one that just takes straight up, right?

Fletcher: Yes. It has different variations.

At this point the interview is over and they go on to play a cute little game Not My Job. I stopped listening at that time.

32 thoughts on “Tiera Fletcher, NASA rocket scientist, appears on NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me”

  1. Yeah, right. Go to MIT and walk the Infinite Corridor. Try to engage in this kind of light-hearted banter with any of the nerds there. You will never, ever have a delightful little confab like this.

    She is an actor. One, no doubt, with some academic training. But in reality just a toothsome poster child for NASA fakery.

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  2. Apparently a 5.0 at MIT is just how they do things … essentially straight A’s, a 4.0 anywhere else. The interviewer and panelists did not understand that. Regarding aerospace engineering at the fourth grade level, I can imagine there are short videos available meant to inspire youth, maybe even put out by NASA, but they do not offer courses in aerospace engineering to grade school kids.

    Regarding her 5.0, it really has to be 1) an exceptional person and 2) a work ethic, but designing a space ship to go to Mars [or the moon] carrying humans has never been done before, so there are no courses in aerospace engineering available that are going to put her over the hump. They have to invent everything on the ground with prototypes and tests and back-stepping and redesigning … all the stuff they pretended to do with Apollo. MIT would have been of no help … I find that because she is a black woman, they are using her as an actress (who may indeed have shown some proficiency in school) to put the work beyond the reach of critics. It’s a double-whammy, black and a woman, that insulates her (and the fake Mars program) from criticism.

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  3. “So I am a rocket structural engineer. What that means is that I design various parts of the rocket, analyze those parts, and I’m also doing manufacturing engineering as well to get all of those parts together into the rocket that you’ll see.”

    Honestly, that sounds crude and dumbed down, written and rehearsed … various parts of the rocket? Like … the seats, toilets, thrusters, computer guidance system? Got to get all them parts together!

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  4. From NASA Spaceflight Systems, Education: “Every object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it.” Newton’s First Law of Motion-NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
    https://spaceflightsystems.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/newton.html

    Nothing in the universe moves in a straight line, nothing is at rest. Everything in the universe is in orbit about something else. You would need to be outside of the universe to test Newton’s theory and yet this is what NASA science used for it’s Moon and Mars shots.

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    1. I think the statement is theoretically true, but I don’t get that NASA was saying that they plotted a straight line to the moon from the earth. Just stating a theory, a body at rest stays at rest, a body in motion stays in motion.

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      1. Hi Mark
        I’ve written a whole page on moon gravity and one or two on Newton, if there is something wrong with my logic I would genuinely like to know about it. In fact I regularly invite readers constructive criticism (referenced).
        Moon: Anomalies Gravity
        https://nextexx.com/moon-anomalies-gravity/
        The picture at the top of the page shows the motion of the Solar System through space with even the arrow that looks like a straight line being its orbit around the galaxy. This is how the universe works. Newton knew nothing of this 300 years ago and based his theory on the trajectory of cannon balls. The strange thing about NASA is that they use this theory ‘as is’ word for word with no attempt to bring it up to date – as if it is sacred rather than scientific. In my world nothing is above scrutiny.

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        1. Thank you CADXX. It is all above my pay grade, but not beyond comprehension. Since NASA is at the forefront of hoaxes of our times (AGW current), I should not be surprised that they don’t pay attention to physics as it has evolved.

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          1. I would say that it’s physics who have not payed attention to physics as it has evolved. All physics was corrupted over a hundred years ago just at the time when it was getting somewhere. I still don’t quite understand how the powers that were knew the implications of what was about to be and stopped it happening – but that’s what they did.
            I was watching some guy a couple of days ago who was talking about the same thing, he said it was like the devil. I don’t go in for devils but something very strange is trying to control our destiny, I’m sure of that.

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          2. Yes, science changed for a large part from an empirical experimental effort towards “theoretical”. All this gobbledegook by The Biggest Magician Of All Time, Berty Einstein, has destroyed real physics.

            The more the pity Miles Mathis seems to step in half-way, just shuffles around the equations a bit, but not observing what you observed; the fundamental change in the natural sciences and the creation of scientism (which is NOT science; it is anti-science) where the theory or hypothesis “just needs to be proven theoretically”.

            The second half of the 19th century is a very interesting time with huge changes, in all areas, but the destruction of science is a major one.

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        2. CADXX- Looks like interesting reading at your site, I hope to check it out when I have time.
          Just scanning it though, the font seems a little hard to read — thin stroke weight. May I suggest trying Verdana, which is recommended as a very legible screen font?

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        3. Are you assuming tsiolkovsky’s metal dirigibles with multiple stage fireworks attached actually went any where near the moon? The wizard’s 1st law is merely a restatement of vis inertia. Vis inertia just means the law of the ignorant of course. Inertia is why clever folks think rocks fly forever in space. The wizard’s g is why the flying space rocks swerve of course.

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          2. Cadxx, g is a factor that is used in geology quite a bit. Has nothing to with magnetism though. How does “Ken Wheeler” (or someone else) solve those equations?

            Is there any experiment that proves that highly magnetic materials fall faster to Earth than non-magnetic ones?

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            1. “Is there any experiment that proves that highly magnetic materials fall faster to Earth than non-magnetic ones?” Not to my knowledge, why don’t you give it a try?
              Isaac Newton: Rail Guns and Three Laws of Motion
              https://nextexx.com/isaac-newton-rail-guns-and-three-laws-of-motion/
              Something else Newton did not know about – electricity. Newton admitted he was unsure about his “laws” of motion but they were seized-upon by the scientific community and made into a pillar of settled science. This is why there were so many problems with the early lunar landers. Apollo 11 almost crashed because the gravity reading did not agree with the ground radar causing a computer problem.

              Check-out “lunar neutral point gravity” (the point between Earth and the Moon where gravity is equal) and see how many different positions are given.
              Mass, which is what gravity is about in this context is location and medium dependent. In other words things are lighter or heavier according to where they are. In water things are lighter and on the Moon they are lighter than on Earth. It’s only possible to state how heavy something is on Earth. Everything has been calibrated for Earth which is why it appears to work, but it does not work on the Moon.

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          3. I don’t care what Ken wheeler thinks. I lied. Does he believe in tsiolkovsky’s interplanetaty dirigibles? Jfk’s pa started rko. The atlas rockets were named for atlas Corp. Its founder floyd odlum had a controlling interest in Rko at the time. Odlum, the movie man (when he was claiming uranium stakes), was bought out by Howard Hughes of course.
            He started a camp for campy Hollywood types with his brother in law by the way. And T. Keith glennan was amovie studio executive. NASA is the movie biz just like the nuke biz I reckon. So you really believe they strapped dogs, monkeys, and gullible apes to glorified v2s and shot them to the moon?

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    2. Some time ago I realized what the difference betwixt a glebe and a globe was. One set of priests pontificate (bridge building or driving the narrative andwhatnot) about the holy spirit and the other set go on about attraction at a distance and ignorant/inactive forces.

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  5. I have a next generation relative, a young woman, who, along with another close relative of her generation, apprenticed at Boeing. The woman is finishing her degree in engineering and has a job waiting for her at several Boeing-grade businesses. A first round draft choice of sorts. In the generation previous to me, there was another close relative, a woman, who was an engineer and served on several government boards when not in private practice. I can tell you with utmost conviction, no woman in the position of the actor described in this post would get beyond submitting a resume’ for an office clerk, let alone be vetted for actual skilled labor at a place like Boeing.
    That young relative of mine carries herself like Wonder Woman, not like Professor Frink from the Simpsons. To compete in a world of cocksure techie dudes, and ride herd over a crew of same, takes a spine, and the actor on that radio program wouldn’t last a day.
    These people design machines that hurtle human beings across vast stretches of real estate at hundreds of miles per hour fer chrissakes! Not a place for wusses.

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  6. I commented on your initial Hidden Figures post in my opinion TPTB are most likely unveiling a project to annoint African American women as the new smartest people most desirable people to be like on the planet. For years the laughable project crown belonged to white women as evidenced by nauseating outrageously unrealistic stupid commercials sitcoms and movies whereby the married white woman is alone on the all-knowing about all-everything wears the pants throne while her white husband is portrayed as a complete Dumb & Dumber Dagwood imbocile relegated to can’t spell his lame name who gets no action shamefully forced to jacking off pervertedly to Barely Legal mags while getting shit and pissed on by everyone just because including the family dog. For me that cookie cutter elementary stage play interview further supports my belief TPTB are replacing white women with African American women as the smartest most desirable people to be like on the planet the Moon & Mars.

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    1. A more palatable way to say this is that the homogenization of the races is taking place through the usual propaganda processes. One need only watch broadcast TV, and in particular the commercials, to see images of light skinned black people portrayed as affluently equal to their white neighbors- and in a disproportionately large number- to see examples of the normalization of cultural miscegenation, to coin a phrase.
      (Not that I’m implying this is some denigration of “racial purity”, a fictional notion only a Darwinite could preach with absolute conviction. What this is is another step towards global homogeneity where one authority fits all)

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    2. On RT news, there was talk of the new James Bond being played by an African actress with a British passport. It was bad enough they used a ginger bloke. You can’t watch an advert in the UK without seeing immigrants in every one, usually with a white woman. It’s no wonder most taxi drivers say stuff like, ‘I know Hitler had his faults BUT…’

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  7. Patrick found this video that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that all launches were unmanned and just fell into the ocean….not exactly what this article is about, but compelling never-the-less

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    1. I don’t care for use of the word “proof,” always subjective. NASA could simply say that the space capsule is like Maxwell Smart and the Chief’s Cone of Silence, which, by the way, made it impossible for them to hear each other, but easy for anyone outside the cone to hear. They could say that the capsule is super-insulated from noise, and anyway, out of the direct impact of the shock waves, which are going off at 45 degrees away from them, and which they will soon outrun anyway. I don’t believe any of that, but, you know, if it comes from an authoritative source, is on TV or computer screen, people beleive it. So proof? Not really. Evidence, yes.

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  11. Motorhead for me your stock drops when you introduce Saturn Death Occult stuff. When you stay the course you are a very nice compliment to the POM writers. I got excited for a moment before clicking your link since I’m open minded when it comes to Hollywood’s direct attempts at poisoning the collective unconscious of humankind forgetting for a moment your link’s title. Now I’m not saying your link doesn’t have any merit. But what I’m saying ala Cris Carter is C’mon Man. Yes you do seem to unearth with the greatest of ease little known publicized information about obscure happenings just outside the lines of most POM posts and reader comments. And maybe I drank too much of the kool aid when you agreed with me that possibly botched plastic surgeries in Hollywood were actually forms of punishment brought down from much higher ups. But it didn’t long for me to reach disappointment at the Saturn Death Occult site. I can understand you knowing about the site. But I can’t understand you actually buying it. To me it’s more you faking a pick off throw to 3rd base just to see if runner on 1st bites.

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