this is tracy van houten, and i'm the aerospace engineer who is running for congress here in this district reporter: a handful have thrown their slide rules into the ring. tracy van houten is an engineer at nasa's jet propulsion laboratory, who works on mars rovers. >> i was in washington last week and then the president's budget came out, and i was there advocating on behalf of stem education, and... >> reporter: she ran for in a special election for a vacated congressional seat in los angeles. >> if we really care about doing the big things in the world, for me at some point, it just didn't feel big enough anymore to focus on answering mankind's questions about the universe. i needed to kind of return my focus here on earth, to help out in the community here. >> reporter: tracy van houten didn't succeed in her experiment. she lost in the primary. despite her aspirations, she is most at home in a clean room. the smoke-filled room is a new frontier. >> science is not what? >> silence! >> thank you. >> reporter: scientists may find it hard to make the transition, but many of them believe th