Artemis II aerospace engineer sends thanks to this Twin Hills teachers

The text was from Nate Eller, one of Zago’s students from more than a decade ago.

The same Eller who wowed his middle school teachers with his intellect and curiosity. The same Eller who kept in touch even after he matriculated through Analy High School and then Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. The same Eller who invited Zago and now-retired eighth grade science teacher Mary Fitch to his grad school graduation, so appreciative was he of their impact on his education.

“It’s deeply satisfying,” Fitch, who retired from Twin Hills three years ago, said. “You know as a teacher that you are doing great work, that people need you, but you don’t often see the final product … To see somebody that actually goes into the business that you are training people for? To see a kid build a rocket and then go become a rocket scientist is really satisfying.”

Today, Eller, 25, is indeed a rocket scientist. An aerospace engineer if we are using NASA parlance, which is where Eller works.

Eller works at NASA’s Ames Research Center at Moffett Field in Santa Clara County.

And on Friday, April 10, Eller was likely watching the Artemis II re-enter Earth’s atmosphere knowing that his work played a role, if small, in making that historic mission take flight.

Eller was part of the the team that in 2025 worked on methods for reducing vibration and altering the exterior airflow around where “the booster mounts to the core stage,” he said. The team collected data from wind tunnel tests and presented findings to the Space Launch Systems team.

“It helped us gather data on the strikes and be confident they were going to work,” he said. “We could compare that with simulated data.”

“Generally, what I work on is experimental aerodynamics. Anything that touches any atmosphere I’m willing to work on,” he said. “Essentially, what that means is I do a lot of wind tunnel testing, simulation and model design.”

So when Artemis II soared into space, taking four astronauts farther from Earth than any humans have ever traveled, Eller knew he played a part in the journey’s success.

But the story here isn’t where the Artemis flight ends but where Nate Eller’s evolution to rocket science begins. He describes his middle school teachers as amazing and pivotal to stoking his intellectual curiosity. He has stayed in touch with Zago and Fitch, even inviting them to this grad school graduation at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

“I always say the reason I went into aerospace is because I lost the rocket competition at the end of the (eighth grade) year,” he said. “We had a bottle rocket competition, and I was responsible for making the parachute for my team.”

By Fitch’s recollection, Eller’s team lost not because Eller didn’t do a good job, they lost because he did too good of a job.

The Eller-designed parachute – using an umbrella somehow affixed to the water bottle – was designed so well it caught a gust of wind, gained altitude … and got caught in a tree.

“He had engineered it, he had scienced the sh-t out of it, right?” Fitch said. “Most kids are slapping on wings and slapping on things and not thinking about it. He had thought deeply about it and lost. But it was beautiful, and he lost.”

But he won. Because the spark was lit.

“The curiosity was always there, but how to harness it was what my teachers provided,” Eller said. “My Twin Hills experience was so formative … I got to Twin Hills it was my first real academic experience. Those were my first two science teachers, and I think it was such a huge impact to have two fantastic scientific method classes early on.”

So fun was Zago’s biology-heavy seventh grade class that Eller signed up to be her teacher’s assistant the next year so he could do all of the experiments again.

“I just really loved her class,” he said. “I remember dissecting frogs and a bunch of other fun things.”

When Zago got the text, she quickly relayed it to her class – she told them that a kid sitting exactly where they were sitting a little more than 10 years ago, is today a rocket scientist helping send astronauts beyond the moon and home again.

“I read it to them and they were like, ‘What?’” she said. The demands ensued: Students wanted to know more about the astronauts and the training, who was this kid who worked on the Artemis, can they see more?

“They said, ‘Can you play it on the TV?’” she said. “I have never had a request like that.”

But when she read the text to herself, the reaction was a little different.

“I got a little choked up,” she said. “I read, ‘The rocket I worked on … ‘ and I stopped. Oh my god, ‘The rocket I worked on.’ I got a little, I thought I was going to cry. I felt really happy.”

“I’m retiring at the end of this year. It’s kind of like a send-off. The thought of years of watching him grow into a very nice young man and he did it, he sent a rocket to the moon. It makes me feel good.”

Eller also name-drops Mrs. Silver and Mrs. Konvalinka at Twin Hills, as well as teachers from pre-K through high school.

“I have always had really strong connections with all of my teachers,” he said.

For Zago and Fitch, watching a student blossom into what they knew he could be way back when is everything.

“Oh my god, it’s so beautiful and it’s so satisfying,” Fitch said. “It’s kind of what you dream about as a teacher, saying ‘We are going to study rockets’ and some kids is going to go build them. It’s very validating.”

Another plus?

“He’s just the sweetest guy,” she said.

To send a text to his teachers from more than a decade ago and essentially say, ‘Hey look what came of what you taught me all those years ago.’ It’s pretty special.

“It was such a high. For him and his great achievement and for me, that I get to share in his success just a little bit?” Fitch said. “The beauty of Nate is he makes you feel like you were important to the process of him getting there.”

You can reach Staff Columnist Kerry Benefield at 707-526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com. On Instagram @kerry.benefield.