NASA GRC

Sometimes, you get a literal rocket science project.

NASA’s Human and Robotic Technology program at the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio needed help preparing funding proposals for the U.S. Government. We jumped into a deadline tighter than last decade’s jeans with NASA engineers and supervising editors at Robert Derwae Associates.

As you can imagine, some of the technical details were way over our head. As in, leave-the-Earth’s-atmosphere over-our-head. But the job of a good proposal writer or editor is not to understand the fine details of the technology or product being proposed. Their job is to understand its purpose, value, and potential, and translate that into a solid case for funding and resources.

And sometimes, their job is to save a brood of ducklings separated from their mother. (True story! Birgitte did actually put a NASA engineer on hold during one of the calls to go outside and reunite the little guys with their mama. Best part, the engineer thought that was awesome. That’s how you know NASA rocks.)

If you’re wondering about the results, of the 18 proposals the team worked on, 4 got funded, and we edited two of those.