It all started with one simple, 113-character tweet.

Because of this tweet, Matt Simmons got to fulfill a lifelong dream: seeing a NASA rocket launch. And not just any launch. Simmons witnessed the first test flight of the Orion spacecraft, designed to one day carry humans to Mars.

Simmons, Systems Administrator for Northeastern’s College of Computer and Information Science, first noticed the message on his Twitter feed. It was a call for applications from NASA for social media commentators to attend the launch.

Having maintained a personal blog since 2008, Simmons also regularly posted on social media accounts including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr. While Simmons’ blog mostly focused on sysadmin matters, it sometimes strayed into his love of science and space.

Simmons applied and was selected as one of 150 participants out of a pool of more than 3,000 applicants. In the month prior to the launch, he used the storytelling platform Medium to blog about the technology behind the Orion test flight, as well as the spacecraft’s capabilities and flight profile.

The December 4 early morning launch window finally arrived, but was scrubbed the first day due to high winds and technical snags. Simmons wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay if it didn’t launch the next.

But he was not to be disappointed. The second attempt went perfectly. He recalls the event: “You’re on this little strip of land that’s been built going out to the Cape (Canaveral) and there are tens of thousands of people all along that strip of land and you’re all staring at this spaceship,” Simmons recalls. “They’ve got loudspeakers set all the way down the causeway. There’s nothing between you and the rocket except water. And it’s dark and there are spotlights shining on it.”

When, after extensive systems checks, the space flight director gave permission to launch the crowd literally went wild. “Thousands of people cheer at one time,” Simmons says. “And that goes into the final two-minute countdown and everybody’s paying attention, and chanting, and then it ignites and it is awesome. It’s magic.”

Silent magic at first. “Because you’re far away enough you don’t hear it immediately, all you see is this explosion of fire as the engines ignite and the rocket starts going and then enough time has passed that the shockwave from these engines hits you,” Simmons says. “In the cavity of your chest the air reverberates and you feel it in every part of you.”

The two-orbit, four-hour flight that tested many of the systems most critical to safety was nearly flawless, Simmons says. “They said it was the best test flight that NASA has ever had.”

When not attending historic space launches, Simmons runs the network that ties all the College of Computer Information and Science together and runs a cluster of virtualization servers.

Simmons particularly appreciates the opportunity to work with Northeastern students. He notes that the College is constantly trying to align to best practices, and students can help test out the latest technologies. “Because we have so many students who are so bright and such hard workers I can get students who are interested in what I’m working on.” Simmons says. “They work with us all the time. It’s great for us. It’s great for the students.”

Simmons, who has been with Northeastern since 2012, sees a future with the College. “A lot of times people will leave a job because they feel like they’ve outgrown it,” Simmons says. “But in the position I have right now I’m not sure that I’m ever going to outgrow it because I can take such an active role in defining what it is that I do and how I do it that the job could easily grow with me.”

– As see in the March 2015 E-Newsletter –