Scoggins: NASA knew it first — Dobbs, the ‘Passtronaut,’ is a winner

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics was hosting its annual competition known as "Design, Build, Fly" in which students from universities across the country are judged on their model airplanes.

Normally the planes have landing gear and are powered on takeoffs. That particular year the organization required planes to be launched by hand.

The student group from the University of Tennessee had a ringer.

"We just happened to have an NCAA quarterback on our team to throw it," said Robert Bond, senior lecturer in the school's aerospace engineering department who oversaw the project.

So did having Joshua Dobbs, starting quarterback in the SEC, result in victory?

"Actually, the team didn't quite design it for an NCAA quarterback," Bond said by phone Wednesday morning. "At one point, he threw it a little harder than we had planned on."

Bond doesn't pretend to be a quarterbacks coach, but he offered Dobbs a tip.

"I was like, 'OK, if you could throw it at a slightly different angle and a little bit different trajectory, it would be better,'" he said. "The next time he threw it perfect."

Perfect like his winning touchdown pass in the final seconds Sunday in Atlanta. The cheers for Dobbs' heroics in leading the Vikings to victory erupted not just in Minnesota but also in Florida at the launch point for space exploration.

"NASA is a fan club of Josh Dobbs," said Scott Colloredo, director of Kennedy Space Center Engineering.

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If it's not clear by now, the new guy with the nickname "Passtronaut" is not a normal quarterback. He speaks both football and rocket science.

Dobbs put his football talent on display in his astonishing debut with the Vikings, and his opportunity to produce a sequel comes Sunday in his first Vikings start. The folks who nurtured his other passion were not surprised that he handled such a complex situation so cerebrally.

He understands rocket science after all. A two-minute drill is nothing.

"He's a very bright and level-headed person," said David Fisher, a development test engineer at Pratt & Whitney.

Fisher served as Dobbs' mentor during his internship at the jet engine manufacturer in 2015. Football obligations only allowed Dobbs to spend one month at the company's Florida facility, but he was put on a project team conducting an accelerated mission test on the F135 engine that powers the F-35 fighter jet.

"His job was looking at some of the instrumentation on the engine," Fisher said. "We would take all the data and trend it and make plots to try to see trends and predict when there's going to be a problem."

Hmmm. Sounds a little more complicated than deciphering a Cover-2 scheme.

Like Fisher, NASA's Colloredo is a Tennessee grad and Vols football fan. He first met Dobbs when he played for the Pittsburgh Steelers. That led to an externship at NASA in conjunction with the NFL Players Association in 2020.

His monthlong stint occurred during prep work for Artemis 1, an uncrewed lunar test flight.

"We put him in our instrumentation group, which is basically measuring everything from structural deflections to hazard gases on launch pads," Colloredo said.

Jimmy Kenyon is director of NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. The center has a hangar with a NASA logo on top that is visible when flying into Cleveland's airport. Dobbs noticed it during his time with the Cleveland Browns and reached out to the NASA staff.

He became a regular visitor to the facility, which features vacuum chambers to test space propulsion systems, a 500-foot drop tower that simulates microgravity and a simulated lunar surface where they test rover tires.

The research center invited Dobbs to speak to students and other groups as part of NASA's STEM outreach.

"He's that rare combination of a brilliant mind and a gifted athlete," Kenyon said. "He's a very powerful role model."

People in Dobbs' engineering background hope Vikings fans get a glimpse of the type of person they got to know.

Said Bond, the college professor: "He never asked for any special treatment."

Said Fisher, the mentor at Pratt & Whitney: "I think if it was up to him, nobody would have known he was [a star quarterback]. I described him as an old soul. Mature beyond his years."

Said Colloredo, the director at Kennedy Space Center: "He really got a lot of street cred with our engineers. They became his fans."

Said Kenyon, the director of Glenn Research Center: "He had a great reputation as an engineer and is just a good guy."

Jerry Wheeler served as a director in military engines at Pratt & Whitney before retiring. He helped secure the internship for Dobbs.

The quarterback's parents were so appreciative that they invited Wheeler, a Vols season-ticket holder, to breakfast the morning after the Vols-Alabama game in 2016.

Dobbs joined his parents and all three expressed their gratitude throughout the meal.

"I said, 'You know your son is a leader of the football team and an aerospace engineering student in the honors college,' " Wheeler said. "It was a pretty easy sell to get him an internship."

Rocket science is on Dobbs' backburner for now. But when his football career eventually ends?

"We have already strongly encouraged him to stop by and see us," Kenyon said with a smile.