Bringing Diversity To Infinity: Three D-FW Engineers Play Vital Role In NASA Gateway Project

By Grace Lieberman

Since astronauts first walked on the moon 52 years ago, only 12 people have landed on the surface — all of them men, and all of them white.

But that will change with the Artemis mission, when nine male and nine female astronauts take off no earlier than 2024 with plans to explore more of the moon’s surface than ever before.

NASA’s Gateway project is a key component of the Artemis program, and three of Gateway’s lead engineers grew up in Dallas-Fort Worth: Devanshi Vani, Diane Davis and Bill Othon.

Gateway, as its name implies, will be a major stepping stone to sending more people to the moon and beyond. It will orbit the moon and, like the International Space Station, be a permanent fixture in space. But it’s much smaller than the ISS — if the ISS is a single-family home, think of Gateway as a studio apartment. Gateway will not always be manned while the ISS has a consistent team of astronauts on board.

The spacecraft will support long-term human presence on the moon and serve as a staging point for future deep space exploration. Gateway will allow astronauts to spend extended time in space to complete scientific research and will be a waystation for astronauts headed to the moon and, one day, deep space destinations like Mars.

The Artemis mission will be the first time humans have walked the lunar surface since the Apollo missions of the 20th century. The astronauts will rely heavily on the work of personnel on the ground, including Vani, Davis and Othon.

Devanshi Vani: Safety first

Devanshi Vani, 41, is deputy manager of safety and mission assurance for the Gateway program, which encompasses the security of crew members and success of all the program’s technologies.

Though she wouldn’t say she took “one clear line straight to NASA,” Vani had lots of science and space-related influences in her childhood.

She credits the Richardson Independent School District for her interest in science. As part of its gifted program, she got hands-on experience with animals in their natural habitat at its environmental studies center. “It kind of really spoke to this love of science and just being out there and exploring,” Vani said. “And that’s the first time I got to pet a tarantula — you never forget that.”

Her family loves science fiction, and she and her brother would go out at night to catch fireflies and look at the stars. She even lived on Galaxie Road in Garland.

“I think it was just the environment, it was all of it,” Vani said.

Vani said NASA’s Gateway and the Artemis program mark large steps in diversity in space travel. Not only will the Artemis program send a diverse crew of astronauts to the moon, the support team is just as diverse, Vani said.

“I think it just speaks volumes to where we’re going in terms of exploring space and that it’s for everyone and that we’re doing this together,” Vani said.

Though there’s been a marked increase in efforts to diversify the industry, as of 2020 the workforce is only 25% women, 8% Black and 6% Latino, according to the Aerospace Industry Association.

“I think the future holds so much for diversity and for taking all of us together, and I think Gateway embodies that. It’s what it should look like as we go forward and explore,” Vani said.

Diane Davis: Setting a path

Diane Davis is the mission design lead for Gateway’s systems, engineering and integration. Her work focuses on the spacecraft’s orbit around the moon. She and her team will determine how to keep the craft on its designed path, how much propellant it’s going to need and how to make sure other spacecraft can safely join Gateway and launch again to other destinations.

The orbit they’ve chosen is called a near rectilinear halo orbit, and it is influenced by the gravitational pull of the moon and Earth. This method provides good communications with the Earth and the Lunar South Pole, and it makes certain functions like controlling the craft’s orientation less expensive.

Davis, who’s 44, was raised in Hurst. She attended L.D. Bell High School and credits her teacher Chris Bruhn for steering her toward science. Bruhn left a career in aerospace to teach physics at Davis’ school.

“My senior year I went to take his class, and he was just a lot of fun,” Davis said. “After school, we built this hovercraft, and we would send it down the hallways.”

Davis said his class ignited her interest in physics, and she made that her major at the University of Texas at Austin. Her father also played a significant role in her passion for science. Before having kids, he worked as a high school biology and physics teacher.

“He used to just give us science lessons. It was my favorite thing.” Davis said. “I used to wander around the backyard, and he’d be doing yard work, I’d be like, ‘Hey, Dad, give me a science lesson,’ so he’d think something up that he could tell me about.”

William Othon: Labs on the ground

William Othon, test and verification lead for Gateway, is responsible for testing all elements of the spacecraft to make sure everything works properly in orbit.

Othon, 57, coordinates verification with the program’s team as well as commercial and international partners.

“We have to build a lot of labs on the ground; we actually have to essentially build the vehicle on the ground and check it out before we get to fly. And that’s my job,” Othon said.

Othon was born in Dallas at St. Paul Hospital not long after his parents immigrated to the area from Cuba. He grew up around his parents’ Spanish accents and his friends’ Texas ones, so “it all canceled out,” and he sounds more Midwestern. But naturally, he still uses y’all.

He lived near Forest and Marsh lanes, and some of his favorite childhood memories are picnicking at White Rock Lake, going to the State Fair of Texas and watching Dallas Cowboys games in the Tom Landry years with his dad — they’re both big fans. When he was 10, his family moved to Houston.

Othon credits UT Austin for some of his success. While he was getting his engineering degree, he was also able to work with companies and that real world experience helped him pursue a NASA career.

He remembers making trips back to Dallas to visit his grandmother, who only spoke Spanish. “One thing that kept my Spanish good was going back to Dallas, going to the Cowboys game and then visiting her,” Othon said. “It was a Spanish quiz every time I went back.”

NASA engineers are collaborating with commercial and international partners on the Gateway program. The habitation and logistics outpost, the initial cabin for astronauts visiting Gateway, is being developed by Northrop Grumman. SpaceX will deliver the first two segments of Gateway to lunar orbit. NASA also is partnering with the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency on aspects of the project.

All three engineers say their jobs include a lot of communication across teams and organizations.

“There are a lot of happy, focused people, all of which want nothing more than to explore space,” Othon said. “It’s very international; everyone’s working together to do the best they can to get humans into space.”