Heliophysics Division Director Joe Westlake Short Version

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One of my favorite memories

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as a kid was just these beautiful, very,

very dark nights.

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It's amazing to be able

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to see the Milky Way,

but also be able to see faint aurora

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as they dance across the sky

and things like that.

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I remember as a teenager

sitting with friends and looking up

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at the dark sky and asking yourself

the question of what's out there.

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It's just such a big, wide

open space for exploration.

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Hi, my name is Joe Westlake

and I'm the director for the Heliophysics

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Division at NASA.

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I think the biggest thing to be excited

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about in my new role is working

with the wonderful Heliophysics team.

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That vibrant community really enables

so many amazing things

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and I'm really excited

to be able to engage with

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all these people that are just so

energetic about the

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science that we're doing.

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Heliophysics

as a discipline is blossoming.

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We're in a position

now where there are so many missions,

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so many instruments, so many technologies

that are coming out of Heliophysics

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right now and NASA in general,

that our impact

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on society, on everyday

life is known and it's big.

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So we're at a point now where we

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as heliophysics just need to start

asking really big questions.

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What does our future look like?

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I want that vision to be our shared vision

as heliophysicists.

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And if you think of our scientific

understanding

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as being raised up

by each of these individuals knowledge

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and each piece of that diverse

community comes together

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to build the sort of beautiful picture

that we need to develop for the world.

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It's a huge impact that that team has.

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Every person alone has a piece of that,

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and no one person alone

can make the entire picture.

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Let me try and bridge

these different places and figure out ways

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to enable our teams, to enable

our heliophysicists to do great work.

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Let's do awesome stuff.