A quantum leap

In high school, Adam Steltzner got what he describes as a "great education. I learned how to meet girls, what drugs to take, where the best shows were." He failed most of sophomore and junior years and earned a 460 combined score on his SATs. For many years, he played bass in various bands, supporting his various habits by working in a health food store.

Jamie Dyk tried out for the Laker Girls and "made it pretty far" before realizing that what with practice and appearances, she was going to have to choose between dancing and her day job. A cheerleader throughout high school, Dyk was raised in "a Christian home" in rural Montana and believes strongly that people were "brought here to give back to society."

On weekends, Kobie Boykins rides his motorcycle through the canyons with friends. "I like speed," said Boykins, who plays competitive ice hockey twice a week. It's a big change from his boyhood in Nebraska, where he grew up around lumbering farm equipment. Boykins sometimes "lightens the tension" at work by telling racial jokes. "I can get away with it," he said, "because I have a lot of African American in me."

A self-confessed tomboy, Shonte Wright wears her hair in long minibraids and plays basketball seven to nine hours a week. She describes her current work environment as "hilarious. You should see what people wear! We always look like we're going out to play."

Her colleague Wayne Lee considers himself lucky to have a wife who bought him "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" for Valentine's Day. "On airplanes, I'm sitting there with my Game Boy, and these businessmen in their stuffy suits and their laptops, and they'll look at me like, 'So, are you going back to school?' And I say, 'No, I work for NASA.' "

If you watched the landings of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity on television, you will remember Lee as the man in charge -- the one in the American flag shirt who brought out the broom after his team made a two-for-two "clean sweep." Steltzner -- who now has a doctorate degree and a baby at home -- headed the team that designed the entry, descent and landing systems. Boykins led the team that designed the mechanism to operate the solar panels and Wright helped design the thermal systems that keep the rovers warm. Dyk was in charge of testing the landing systems during development.

"At heart, I'm a space geek who wants to put hardware on the surface of Mars," the would-be Laker Girl said.