SmallSat conference details August 2014

So, this is a little bittersweet: Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL) and the Utah State University Research Foundation sent a brochure to me in the mail announcing the Small Satellite conference (SmallSat) for next year. Guess someone forgot to take me off the mailing list… We parted on amicable terms and small satellites, like cubesats, are […]

Military Space Operators and the problem of translating skills

Here it is, another post of mine right here on Clearancejobs.com. It’s essentially about the problem of identifying skills certain space operators might have, if they’ve experienced space broadly. A bit of a paragraph for you, but you’ll have to go there to read the rest: “Skills translation is a tough job in any industry. […]

My second post on Clearancejobs.com

Okay, so the cat’s now out of the bag. I’ve just started writing freelance for Clearancejobs.com. They liked what they saw here, and are giving me an opportunity to write some posts for them. I will still be writing posts on The Mad Spaceball, but I will also be writing posts for Clearancejobs.com. If a […]

Everyone’s worried but SpaceX

This particular article highlights some interesting differences in philosophy about success and risk (and there is a link) between established players and SpaceX. For opinion, sadly not about space operations, but rather the future of them, read further. The scenario: SpaceX has decided to upgrade their rocket engines to more powerful ones, and update the […]

Too much Corona, a Discoverer’s tale seen through the Keyhole

I just came upon this article from the Discovery Channel, and it tickled some memory cells. Back when we just started lobbing imagery satellites up into low earth orbit, we didn’t have the comprehensive ground systems and bandwidth of today. There was no such thing as a digital camera to be used as a payload. […]