My name is Tiera Fletcher and I am a rocket scientist — no, really.
I work for Boeing in Huntsville, Alabama working on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. My team and I work around the clock to build rockets that will one day send the next generation of Americans to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
As an elementary school student in small town America, I spent every waking hour imagining that I was working on rockets. I worked tirelessly to achieve my goals and continue to work passionately with my team at Boeing to make sure America leads the world into the new space age.
I recently shared my story with Alabama’s AL.com in hopes to inspire the next generation to chase their passion — regardless of who they are or where they come from.
“…It’s the culmination of a new day for American space travel that is reflected across the workforce in Boeing, where I am a Rocket Structural Engineer helping build NASA’s Space Launch System rocket to power deep space missions like the trip to Mars. Boeing’s space team is increasingly diverse, a huge leap forward from the days when only certain kinds of people were thought to have the right stuff.
For me, it’s more than ever seemed possible growing up in a small town in Georgia.
Driven by a passion for science, by age six, I was using whatever I could get my hands on to make model rockets and airplanes (pink, of course). While my classmates scrambled for recess, I chose math and the playground of my mind…”