PASADENA, Calif. — Known to the Twitterverse and the president of the United States as “Mohawk Guy” of the Mars mission, Bobak Ferdowsi could be the changing public face of NASA and all of geekdom.
Ferdowsi, whose shaved scalp also features star shapes, is a flight director for the Mars rover Curiosity — a mission that captured the nation’s imagination with its odds-defying, acrobatic landing.
And Mohawk Guy isn’t the only star. There’s also former rock ‘n’ roller Adam Steltzner, sometimes called “Elvis Guy” because of his pompadour and sideburns.
Steltzner directed the daring landing of the rover and appears in a NASA movie trailer describing why the Aug. 5 Mars landing involved “seven minutes of terror.”
The JPL missions are run in a creative conclave nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains east of Los Angeles and managed by the California Institute of Technology for NASA.
“The button-down white shirts and ties were always in Houston; they were not here,” said Gentry Lee, who is chief engineer for planetary flight systems at JPL and is one of Ferdowsi’s bosses.
