rover on Mars became an overnight Internet sensation. Tweets deluged the Internet, memes featured his picture and the web was abuzz with its latest instant celebrity.
But as he woke up the next morning, even Bobak Ferdowsi couldn’t believe what happened. His “followers” on Twitter had ballooned from under 200 to more than 50,000, his pictures were everywhere and, as the Internet’s newest eligible bachelor, marriage proposals rolled in.
“I sort of thought this week was just going to be dealing with the emotions of landing,” Ferdowsi told Wired magazine’s blog, Danger Room. “But to find out late Sunday, early Monday morning that all of the sudden people were really interested in me, that was totally surreal.”
NASA broadcast Curiosity’s landing live, but since the lander could not brioadcast anythikng during the seven minutes of its decwntr to the surface of Mars, images of the Pasadena, California, control room, with engineers intensely focused on their monitors, dominated the te;evision broiadcast. Bobak’s Mohawk, complete with the patriotic twist of red-white-and-blue stars, stood out from the rest of the crowd of engineers, all wearing baby blue team shirts.
“Guides a rover through space … and into my heart” read one of the images that feature his Mohawk and Bobak’s bright, flashy smile. “Becomes internet sensation. Too busy landing a robot on Mars to notice,” read another. But yet another picture perhaps made the case for his sudden fame best: “On team that makes space-exploration milestone. Girls more interested in his hair.”
Bobak was part of the team of flight directors tasked with ensuring Curiosity’s historic flight was glitch-free. If they hadn’t done it right, $2.5 billion of taxpayer money would have been splayed across the dusty surface of Mars. Curiosity will conduct experiments over the next two years to ascertain whether the red planet ever did or could sustain life.
Even President Obama took note of Mohawk-man. In a congratulatory phone call to the team Monday, Obama said, “You guys are a little cooler than you used to be,” referring to the white-shirt-and-black-tie crowd that was seen in the control room for Apollo launches in the 1960s and 1970s. Noting Bobak’s instant celebrity status, Obama said he might try the Mohawk himself. “I think that I’m going to go back to my team and see if it makes sense,” he kidded.
The term Mohawk is used for the haircut because it is the style of hair worn by Mohawk Indian warriors in the 18th Century. It is a narrow band of hair from the forehead back with the sides of the head shaved.
Bobak was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1979. Pre-college, he was educated in San Francisco, the American school in Tokyo and Oakland, California. A 2001 graduate of the University of Washington in Seattle, Bobak studied aerospace engineering and performed research with leading scientists, including Nobel Laureate Dr. Hans Dehmelt. He joined the Lean Aerospace Initiative when he enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2001 for graduate work.
He has used a different hairstyle to mark the various missions he has been involved with while working at NASA. His Mohawk for the Curiosity mission came as a result of a poll of the mission team. “I believe there was ‘Mars red,’ there was ‘shave your head,’ there was ‘natural.’ And I feel like there might have been one more,” he told the Los Angeles Times of the ritual. His colleagues “kind of overwhelmingly voted for red, white and blue. I think 40 or 50 people ended up voting.”
His sudden internet fame won more than just the hearts of adoring fans. As one Iranian-American wrote, “With all of the negativity surrounding Iran at this time, it’s refreshing to see a young, hip guy like Ferdowsi really give us something to be proud of.”
Another commentator wrote: “Forget the thick black framed glasses, polyester ties and pocket protectors of the control room staff at the Apollo landings. This is the face of 21st century NASA!”
Another tweeted, “No child ever will be prevented from having a Mohawk if they want to study math or science.”
Bobak, however, was more humble about the revolutionary impact of his hair. “I would love to be working here 10 years from now and some guy who was in high school or middle school at the time sees me and is like, ‘I remember you, you’re one of the reasons I got into NASA.’ Even if one kid is like that, I’d probably get a little emotional,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
What’s next for the hair that spawned a thousand memes? The answer is rather simple: “I don’t know.”
“Maybe if we somehow make an amazing discovery in the next few weeks, maybe I’ll do something for that. Otherwise, I think it’ll kind of grow out naturally, go back to a normal Mohawk or faux-hawk. Maybe not so vibrant.”