For some, a few days spent on a resume is considered a long time.
Ben Feist, a digital services expert from Regina working in Toronto, spent years on his CV.
His story is a little different than most job-seekers. Feist is the man responsible for untangling 11,000 hours of audio recorded on 60 channels during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. You know, the one where we landed on the moon. His work is featured in the ‘Apollo 11’ documentary currently on the theatre circuit.
Before that, he built a website that allows viewers to experience the 1972 Apollo 17 mission – the last time we went to the moon. It features 302 hours of audio, more than 22 hours of video, and more than 4,200 photos. It really is a marvel of effort and execution.
It also landed him a job at NASA. “One day NASA called me and said, ‘Cool website’,” he told the CBC. The person on the other line was Noah Petro, who’s leading the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission currently mapping the moon via satellites.
Screenshot taken from Ben Feist’s ‘Apollo17’ website.
The space program thought Ben’s website was so cool, in fact, that they thought Ben could help them on future space missions. Like going to the moon again by the end of the 2020s. After presenting his work, he was hired as a researcher studying mission data organization and visualization.
How’s that for turning your hobby into a dream job. <Insert quote about shooting for the stars and landing on the moon if you miss>.