Question: Did you like working in NASA better than you like working here in Ireland?

Conor McGinn answered on 27 Feb 2016:

NASA was great by I prefer my current job. At NASA I was working with super smart people and we had lots of resources (big budget, access to amazing machines etc.). However NASA facilities are normally in the middle of nowhere so your life kind of revolves around your work whether you want it to or not. Also when you work in places like NASA (or Ferrari/Apple/Tesla etc.), people already expect great things. So what happens is that should a few engineers do something amazing – say invent a new material – then everyone reports that ‘NASA invent new material’. In the end, only very few people know who actually deserves the credit. It would be like if the Man United or Chelsea players all wore masks. Personally it felt that working somewhere like this would make me a cog in a wheel, so to speak.
My current job is kind of my dream job. I generally get to work on what I want to work on. If I have an idea for a project or invention etc., I have the people around me and the resources I need to make it happen. I get to work with interesting students – I enjoy teaching and believe it or not, I learn alot from the students. Being young and perhaps a little bit naive can be a really good thing – for example you can have great new ideas. Sometimes the more experienced you get, the more resistant you are to new ideas – so for me its the perfect mix!
And I can promote myself and the work the way I want. At present our research is going great and soon I am confident that we will be able to show some things that are really special and nobody will have seen before. And when this happens, my team and I will control how we publicise it. We will make sure that we get the credit we deserve.