Who Will (Want to) Pay for A Few Broadband Constellations?

In the last post, I noted that the proposed, but preposterously large, low/medium Earth orbiting broadband constellations will be cheap. Some technology and economies of scale will possibly play into that, but that’s not the kind of cost-savings I’m referring to. Let’s start with price estimates for creating the Starlink constellation from Mr. Musk: $10 […]

Explorer 1, the First US Satellite

January 31st, 1958. 56 years ago, and the United States had finally succeeded in launching its own satellite, the Explorer 1. According to this Yahoo! Travel post, the launch of Explorer 1 was linked to the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The big deal about that, as explained in this wiki entry, is the IGY marked the beginning […]

Leaving Military Space Operations

Of course, I did leave the military some time ago. And I haven’t looked back. Mistakes were made during my transition from military space operations to contractor. Some of those mistakes are what this Clearancejobs.com post is all about. Just click on the following link to read the post: “Lost in Military Transition: Considerations Before […]

Reserved Perceptions in Military Space operations

The United States Air Force (USAF) space operations corps. has a problem. I know, there are several (put your hands down!), but I will be talking about a specific one, one which is insidious. One which military personnel and contractors are somewhat blurring the ethical line. First, let’s talk about the concepts of impartiality and […]

Broken American Space Policy exclamation point…

I wrote a longer than anticipated series about the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA–and darn it, I just noticed it’s Oceanic and not Oceanographic) problems in getting just one satellite up into space. The NOAA’s problems are so bad, they had to have an Independent Review Team get into their business, note the problems, […]