When I first heard the term mission control it was back in the early 1960s when I was a child captivated by the Apollo Space Program. The space program truly inspired me and is one of the reasons why I decided to go into engineering. Nothing at the time even came close to the scale and magnitude of NASA’s science/technology advances and discoveries. The early space program accomplished so much, and we utilize many of these advances in today’s critical systems from both an engineering and operations perspective.
Today, more than three-fourths of the world’s population is connected some how and is exponentially increasing its processing power; we are literally moving electrons all around the universe into some data center executing our every command. These data centers and other critical infrastructures are the new mission control for our digital society. The infrastructure to support it is complex and challenging and requires diverse sets of interdisciplinary skills and solutions to operate safely and reliably. In other words, there is every reason that today’s best and brightest talent would find a career in the mission critical engineering industry fulfilling.