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"The sky is not the limit": Japie van Zyl

He grew up gazing at the heavens and dreaming of building satellites as little boy in Opuwo (NAMIBIA), and today many years later, Japie van Zyl is part of the NASA team behind the [Mars Science Laboratory] that landed on Mars on August 6.

Japie, who is the son of Ben van Zyl (the commissioner of the Kaokoveld from 1942-1981) is now good friends with Buzz Aldrin, who is the second person (after Neil Armstrong) to set foot on the moon.

JOURNEY TO BECOMING PART OF THE NASA TEAM

When Japie could not afford to go for studies, his future father-in-law offered to pay for his studies. A few years later Japie wanted to go on to study engineering and was going to apply to Telecom for a bursary. His school teacher from Outjo advised him to apply for a bursary from Armscor instead. He did so, going on to study electronics engineering at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. When he was planning to furthure his studies, a good friend of Japie’s, known as Dave Harrison encouraged him to write to the top twenty universities. Japie thus ended up doing his Master’s at California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He continued a good academic track record and when he was celebrating his success at the campus club, his professor, Prof Elachii offered to pay for Japie’s to continue with a PhD.

It may all seem too good to be true but this is how Japie van Zyl made it so far. The four persons mentioned above help to steer him on the path of becoming the associate director of Project Formulation and Strategy (in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory) which he is today.