Recent Posts

• Cal Poly SLO Students Tour Lockheed Martin, Sunnyvale
• NASA wants your input!
• How can celebrities help raise awareness of STEM careers?
• Sometimes Workforce Development Is Rocket Science
• Journey to Palomar
• A Hands-On Approach to Workforce Development
• Who Owns the Moon?
• Kennedy vs. Obama on Space
• Partnering with NASA
• Calling all Aerospace Industry Professionals

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Cal Poly SLO Students Tour Lockheed Martin, Sunnyvale

November 10th, 2008   By Thend   Filed Under Industry Space, Student Space  

The California Space Education & Workforce Institute arranged for 5 students from California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo to visit Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale on Friday October 24, 2008. The students  received a warm welcome, luncheon presentation, and a mock up tour from the young professionals and staff that currently work there.

The students, accompanied by the Director of the Math Engineering Science Achievement Program (MESA) at Cal Poly SLO, were attentive with lots of questions for the Lockheed Martin employees about the aerospace industry. Most of the students in attendance were at the Junior level in college, and the majority had never visited an aerospace company before.  While all of the students were seeking a career in Aerospace prior to the tour, all felt that the tour sparked their interest even more.  When asked what they gained from the tour the following were some of their responses:

“Before this tour I had little to no prior experience with missiles and defense systems”

“Lots of information about jobs & opportunities”

“Talking with people that actually work in the fields I am considering to get an idea of what they do”

NASA wants your input!

November 3rd, 2008   By Matt   Filed Under Industry Space  

Wayne Hale at NASA has created a blog post asking for your input.  I don’t want to paraphrase the whole thing, but the main point is that NASA is preparing to inform the next president of the agency’s current status and issues.  Dr. Haile is asking for your input on what the largest issues facing NASA are.  This is a great opportunity to participate in your space program.

How can celebrities help raise awareness of STEM careers?

October 28th, 2008   By Matt   Filed Under Big Idea Space  

What would you ask a celebrity to do in order to help encourage students of all ages to study Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)?

The space community has broadly expressed the shortage of students graduating with STEM skills in order to become the scientists, engineers and technicians of the future.  It has even been called a crisis.

Carrying this important message to young students is not without challenges.  In an industry that traditionally does not produce many products directly for consumers, there is little focus on advertising.  This results in the voice of the space community being overshadowed by the myriad commercial entities that are collectively vying for the attention of these young minds.

The entertainment industry, through the likes of the Star Wars franchise and movies like Iron Man, do provide some level of visibility to STEM careers.  The space community has recognized Hollywood for raising awareness.  In addition, the space enterprise community have also expressed, through the California Space Enterprise Strategic Plan 2007-2010, that a more direct endorsement of the value that STEM careers bring to society and our economy is needed.

The importance of addressing the STEM workforce issue is expounded by the current global economic crisis.  Some celebrities have spoken out to share their solution to global economic woes but the Planetary Society’s Board of Directors has made a strong statement that “Space is not a luxury,” and carries with it long term economic benefit.  They also make a convincing argument for the benefits derived from the inherently international community around space activity.  But the benefits to be brought from space enterprise activity depend on a healthy aerospace workforce.

So, with this global issue in need of increased awareness, what is to stop celebrities from using their star power to bring some attention to it?  How would you like to see star power applied to the STEM issue?  A press conference?  A book?  A blog post? A benefit concert? A YouTube video? Interpretive dance?

Please use the comments to tell us what you think would be an effective way for celebrities to bring awareness of STEM careers to young students.

Sometimes Workforce Development Is Rocket Science

October 22nd, 2008   By Matt   Filed Under Industry Space, Student Space  

MOJAVE, CA – Learn by doing has long been the motto of many California State University campuses and at the Long Beach campus (CSULB), that’s just what they are doing. In conjunction with Garvey Spacecraft Corporation (GSC) and the California Space Authority (CSA), 42 students from numerous campuses have successfully launched a 500 pound liquid-fueled rocket over the skies of the Mojave Desert. Funded by the US Department of Labor’s Workforce Innovation in Regional Economic Development (WIRED) initiative, the project was heavily focused on demonstrating the effectiveness of ambitious hands-on opportunities in preparing the next generation of the nation’s technical workforce.

“The space enterprise community has expressed the need for hands-on lessons that will teach to the workforce issues it faces,” stated Andrea Seastrand, Executive Director of CSA. “This exercise is exactly the type of opportunity to provide real-life, real-time learning.”

The rocket, known as Prospector 12A (P-12A) and developed by GSC and CSULB, carried payloads that were designed and developed by students of CSULB, Santa Clara University, Saratoga High School and the University of Kentucky. Their mission was to collect data about the rocket’s aerodynamic performance, the rocket’s trajectory, and to record video for further study.

“It was an exciting experience and learning process for these students and their mentors,” said Professor Bob Twiggs of Stanford University. “The Saratoga High School students asked me to say ‘thanks’ to the WIRED program for this opportunity.”

Recognizing the activity as an experience the students will remember, Dr. Eric Besnard, Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at CSULB, commented that “this launch represented the culmination of weeks of close collaboration between industry mentors, students and faculty and as a result its lessons about systems integration are all the more valuable.”

According to John Garvey of GSC, “this launch represents another important step in our long-term goal of developing a dedicated nanosat launch vehicle that can put these kinds of student payloads into orbit. The P-12A rocket reached an altitude of 3,000 feet before returning to earth.” All payloads survived the launch and returned intact and the student investigators were intensely focused on retrieving their hardware and data.

“To ensure we retain our leadership in the global space economy, it is imperative that we step up our workforce training efforts to fill the coming gap that will be caused by retirements from the existing workforce,” concluded Mrs. Seastrand. “It is exciting to know that CSA was instrumental in providing this highly relevant opportunity for students.”

Journey to Palomar

September 23rd, 2008   By Matt   Filed Under Meeting Space, Student Space  

There is a new documentary about the events leading up to the creation of the observatory at Palomar Mountain in San Diego County.  Astronomers were the first space explorers, and this documentary covers the work by George Hale and others on creating the first of the telescopes that started to give us the kind of data that changed our understanding of the universe.  If this doesn’t immediately strike you as an interesting story, it may help to note that Palomar was the biggest telescope in the world at the time and that it took over twenty years to complete it, starting one year before the beginning of the great depression.  The mirror itself took 11 years to finish, and moving it to its final location at the observatory was national news at the time.

Their will be a webcast for students and educators to take place on Wednesday, October 8, 2008 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific time.  Participants in the interactive session will have the opportunity to ask questions directly to a panel of leading scientists inlcuding Nobel Laureate Dr. John Mather, Science Director for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope; Carnegie Observatories Director, Dr. Wendy Freedman on the Giant Magellan Telescope; and Caltech Optical Observatories Director Emeritus, Dr. Richard Ellis on the Thirty-Meter Telescope.  The discussion will be moderated by Dr. Derrick Pitts, television personality and Chief Astronomer at the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia.  This will be a great opportunity for any young student interested in space science or astronomy.

A Hands-On Approach to Workforce Development

September 19th, 2008   By Matt   Filed Under Your Work Space  

I attended the Space 2008 Conference last week in San Diego to present some of our recent work on workforce development (including this blog), and found that the workforce issue was a major topic of discussion.  Lieutenant Governor Garamendi spent a significant portion of his time addressing the audience on this topic, along with others.

Also presenting at Space 2008 on the workforce topic was Richard Rieber, a young engineer at JPL who has been working on a program called Phaeton that struck me as a brilliant meshing of the conflicting requirements that are typically put forth by the incoming workforce and some of the typical needs of management specific to the space community.  The program is centered around providing short term (~3 years) rapid development and prototyping projects that require new hires at JPL to apply their skills to the full cycle of a project, while providing access to their more experienced co-workers.  While the missions under Phaeton are mostly not focused on creating flight hardware, they are intended to provide useful technology development back to JPL, for instance, raising the TRL of a new technology so that it can become eligible for incorporation into future NASA missions.  In the mean time, the participants have developed skills and experience that will benefit their future assignments.

As with most things, the key to effectiveness is in the details.  The projects under Phaeton are conducted in a lab dedicated to these projects.  This allows for the work environment to be set up in a very “Millennial” way.  Reconfigurable common workspaces, combined with a slightly more casual area and an “engineering bullpen”.  Documentation is completed via wiki, and the IT infrastructure is set up to allow for most of the work to be done via laptops.  The engineering workstations and other equipment are clustered together and common to all of the projects.  The overall effect is that space and time are made flexible and team work is enabled through the physical arrangement of the lab and through the collaboration oriented knowledge management setup.

The program is staffed in such a way that about half of the young professionals’ time is dedicated to Phaeton activity, while the rest of their time goes to their “regular” duties.  The mentors are staffed to provide guidance on an as needed basis.  Other experienced engineers contribute to technical oversite and project milestone reviews.

The most interesting aspect of this program to me is the fact that Phaeton was started by young scientists and engineers at JPL.  Rieber and his team are working to bring the program up to full capacity (approximately three concurrent and phase staggered projects).  It will be interesting to see how the program progresses.  I am sure their work will encourage other young talent to follow in their footsteps.

But what does this mean in the context of the space enterprise community?  Could the Phaeton model be the beginning of a trend for the aerospace community?  As space companies, government agencies, and research facilities are required to compete with companies like Google for top engineering talent, will they begin to adopt more and more of their workspace practices?  A trend towards the “Googleization” of the aerospace work environment would be an interesting development.

How many other organizations in the space community are doing something similar with their work environments?  Answer in the comments!

Who Owns the Moon?

August 7th, 2008   By _randall   Filed Under Babble Space, Meeting Space  

*WHAT:* The eleventh Luna Philosophie will feature Steve Durst from the Board
of Directors of the International Lunar Observatory Association and Dr.
William Marshal of NASA Ames.  The two will share various views on Space
Property Rights from industry, United Nations, and the US Government.

*WHO OWNS THE MOON?*
With a boom of countries and commercial entities looking to go to the moon,
who can claim land on it?  There are websites one can go to and purchase
land on the moon, but if someone lands their spacecraft here, do they owe
rent?  Come hear the various points of view including the several UN
resolutions on the topic, why they might not be binding, and suggest a new
plan to move forward.

Some topics to discuss include:
- Can someone own land on the moon?
- Do non-government groups have to respect the resolutions of the United
Nations on this topic?
- Can one sell the resources gathered from the moon in a mining operation?

*WHEN:* Tuesday, August 5, 2008 from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
6:00 - 6:30 PM Socializing
6:30 - 7:00 PM Presentation by Steve Durst and William Marshal
7:00 - 7:30 PM Discussion
7:30 - 8:00 PM Socializing

*WHERE:* Yahoo! Brickhouse, 500 3rd St, in San Francisco
([http://upcoming.yahoo.com/venue/59350/])
WHO: All are welcome!

For more information on Luna Philosophie, visit:
[http://colab.arc.nasa.gov/luna]

Kennedy vs. Obama on Space

July 30th, 2008   By _randall   Filed Under Political Space  

While Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been compared to John F. Kennedy, Obama has been far less supportive of human spaceflight today than Kennedy was nearly 50 years ago. Michael Huang makes the case for Obama to change course. Visit http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1171/1 to view the article.

Partnering with NASA

July 30th, 2008   By _randall   Filed Under Babble Space, Meeting Space  

August 5, 2008

WHAT: The tenth Luna Philosophie will feature Doug Comstock, who directs NASA’s
Innovative Partnerships Program (IPP).  He will speak on some of the
technological breakthroughs that have come through partnering with NASA.

PARTNERING WITH NASA:  INNOVATION THROUGH COLLABORATION
Come learn about how NASA works with external organizations to bring space
technology down toEarth, and bring new technologies from outside of NASA into
the organization.  Part of the talk will focus on IPP’s Centennial Challenges
Program, NASA’s ‘citizen inventor’ program, with an upcoming event in Santa Rosa
for a “Green Prize” for aviation transportation.

Some topics to discuss include:
*  How do you successfully foster innovation in large organizations?
*  How do partnerships factor into the future of NASA?
*  What are some of the most surprising benefits of space technology to the
general public?

WHEN:  Tuesday, August 5, 2008 from 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM
6:00 – 6:30 PM Socializing
6:30 – 7:00 PM Presentation by Doug Comstock
7:00 – 7:30 PM Discussion
7:30 – 8:00 PM Socializing

WHERE: Yahoo! Brickhouse, 500 3rd St, in San Francisco
([http://upcoming.yahoo.com/venue/59350/])

WHO: All are welcome!

RSVP: at upcoming.org

For more information on Luna Philosophie, visit:
[http://colab.arc.nasa.gov/luna]

Calling all Aerospace Industry Professionals

July 10th, 2008   By Thend   Filed Under Industry Space, Student Space  

The California Space Education & Workforce Institute would like to personally invite you to participate in our new virtual mentoring program!!!

Our goal is to encourage current university students to choose a career path in aerospace, and to offer them guidance on their pathway to success from an industry professional.
We have partnered with an organization called Icouldbe.org to bring you a virtual mentoring website that will provide you with a CONVENIENT yet effective way to make a positive impact on a university student’s life.  You can mentor a university student via email- requiring up to only 1 hour of your time per week.

STEP 1

Please register as a CSEWI MENTOR through our secure website below:
www.icouldbe.org/csewi