United Launch Alliance Employee Has Dream Job

 Rosie Carver

How do you launch a rocket? Rosie Carver knows how. As an employee with United Launch Alliance, the 60-year-old grandmother leads the team that assembles the massive procedure books that dictate every step to be taken in processing and launching a Delta rocket, including the launch countdown.

She estimates she's created at least 15,000 procedures for more than 300 missions since the Solar Maximum Mission, which launched Feb. 14, 1980. The documents cover all Delta vehicle processing work, from the time rocket parts are shipped to the launch site until after liftoff when the pad is clear.

For each mission, Rosie produces about a hundred procedure books for each mission. Each procedure is made up of multiple tasks, which in turn consist of page after page of steps -- sometimes 400 pages or more.

Carver was hired and trained as a keypunch operator in 1965, just after graduating from high school. Before computers were the mainstays of technology, keypunch machines and readers were used to produce launch procedures, timecards and other documents. Over the years, she worked for The Boeing Company and McDonnell-Douglas. She's been with the Delta launch program since 1970.

Rosie’s enthusiasm is contagious. She says "Getting to be part of history," is the best part of her job. "Not everyone gets to love their job as much as I do," she says.