Intro music.
Leading the team that ensures the health of the Space Shuttle's powerhouse requires an incredible amount of planning.
Just ask Susan Johnson, a quality assurance and systems safety manager for Rocketdyne Propulsion and Power.
Every day, her job revolves around the activities of the Space Shuttle Main Engine team at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
"My day usually starts at six o'clock in the morning. I usually have a lot of employees that come in actually that early.
We talk and discuss things that happened during the previous days and what's planned for that day."
Even though she's the only female manager on the team, Susan says it's never been an issue.
"We kid a lot, but we have a lot of respect for each other. I don't look at it as being the only female in my position.
I just kind of look at it as being me, and what I want to accomplish in this program."
The Solid Rocket Boosters, or SRBs, are jettisoned two minutes into flight.
But the Space Shuttle's three main engines keep working during the entire eight-and-a-half-minute ride into space, until main engine cut-off, or MECO.
When Susan and the team prepare the engines for flight, nothing is more important than safety.
"What happens every day in the engine shop is we take our engines through the paces when they're not installed in the orbiter.
We make sure the systems are good, we make sure there's no leaks in the engine, we make sure that the software is good that's loaded into it,
and those are the engines that we prepare for launch each time."
The payoff for all that hard work comes on launch day.
"The most exciting part of my job is getting to watch a Shuttle launch from a couple miles away.
We go outside and watch the launch, and the engine people are standing around,
waiting for the engines to cut off, and we're waiting for that last MECO."