By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

There are several hundred open positions in Mojave as companies such as the Spaceship Company, XCOR and Scaled Composites begin to ramp up operations.

“It’s ironic that we’re having a recruitment problem in Mojave,” said Stu Witt, CEO and general manager of the Mojave Air and Space Port. He added that this is a good problem to have.

The Spaceship Company, which is building WhiteKnightTwos and SpaceShipTwos for Virgin Galactic, has engineering and production positions open. The company is holding a jobs fair in Wichita, Kansas, on March 14 to recruit prospective employees there.

Scaled Composites has 11 positions featured on its website, including aerodynamicist, composite fabricator, manufacturing engineer, and purchasing manager.

XCOR is staffed up on the engineering side but is looking to build out its business operations. The company is seeking a director of retail sales and channel operations to oversee sales to individual passengers and organizations that want to fly experiments on the suborbital Lynx vehicle.

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(CSA PR) Day 1 — The first day of Dextre’s most demanding mission wrapped up successfully on March 7 as the robotic handyman completed his three assigned tasks. Dextre successfully retrieved, inspected and stowed three of the four specialized tools built specifically for the Robotic Refueling Mission by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre. After thorough checkouts, Dextre confirmed that the Safety Cap Tool, the Wire Cutter and Blanket Manipulation Tool […]

By Douglas Messier Parabolic Arc Managing Editor Florida Sens. Bill Nelson and Marco Rubio have introduced legislation to designate all of Brevard County as a HUBZone, making small businesses eligible for economic assistance in an area hard hit by the end of the space shuttle program. The Shuttle Workforce Revitalization Act of 2102 aims to help the area around the Kennedy Space Center to help retain its skilled workforce by […]

SFF PR — The Space Frontier Foundation’s Teachers in Space program and NASA are teaming up this summer for a second round of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) workshops that focus on Suborbital Astronautics, Space Medicine and Human Factors, and Suborbital Flight Experiments.

The goal of the workshops is to give teachers the curriculum and experiences necessary to boost STEM instruction, including the opportunity to fly an experiment on a Masten Space suborbital vehicle. The workshop instructors will include a former Space Shuttle Commander as well as leading scientists from NASA, FAA, NewSpace and leading aerospace universities. Secondary teachers currently teaching STEM subjects should apply at tis.spacefrontier.org workshops by April 5, 2012.

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You can now purchase tickets to SpaceUp SF at www.SpaceUpSF.org/Registration. Space at the venue is limited so make sure to sign up well in advance. Ticket prices are $50 for adult attendees and $10 for kids (around 8 & under). We also have a student volunteer rate of $25 and student registrants will be asked to help us out running the event. There is also a $100 Launch Crew level. […]

Albuquerque, NM (March 7, 2012 – Medusa Space PR) – Medusa Space, a microgravity research and development company from Albuquerque, NM, has acquired a broad range of Intellectual Property from Microgravity Enterprises, Inc. (MEI).

Beginning in 2007, MEI commercially sold  its consumer products produced on Earth but made from ingredients which had been flown in space.  These included the world’s first space beer, Comet’s Tail Amber Ale (space flown yeast), Antimatter Energy Drink (space flown B-vitamins) and Space2O enriched water (space flown electrolytes).  However, they also created a unique database of US and international space experiments with emphasis on those specific experiments which identified the promise of potential high value products.   Along with the experiment database, MEI developed a business utility assessment tool which matches potential new products to the cost of development, execution, and return on investment (ROI).

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Pelham, AL (March 8, 2012) – “Spirit of Alabama” will be the name of the Alabama-based Rocket City Space Pioneers’ (RCSP’s) lunar lander competing in the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE thanks to some help from Karen McDonald’s fourth-grade class at Valley Intermediate School. The students won the team’s “Name the Lander” contest, earning them a trip to Space Camp™ in Huntsville and their teacher a $500 gift card for classroom supplies. The surprise announcement was made to the class today.

The Google Lunar X PRIZE, the largest incentivized competition offered to date, challenges space professionals and engineers from across the globe to build and launch to the moon a privately funded spacecraft capable of completing a series of exploration and transmission tasks.  The Google Lunar X PRIZE is one of three active competitions from the X PRIZE Foundation, the leading nonprofit organization for creating and managing large-scale, global incentivized competitions.

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UKSA PR — Sixteen UK space labs and companies are set to benefit from the latest round of the UK Space Agency’s National Space Technology Programme (NSTP) which will spur innovation in the fast-moving area of space technology known as ‘cubesats’.

Cubesats are tiny, low-cost spacecraft – weighing only a few kilos – which can be launched ‘piggy-back’ on larger spacecraft. Many of today’s cubesats are proving to be great educational projects helping students hone practical skills in building and operating satellites. However, with advances in technology, many experts believe they will also be used for cutting-edge science or operational uses in the future.

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March 7 2012, Washington D.C. (CSF PR): Col. Jim Voss, Director of Advanced Programs at Sierra Nevada Corporation and Dr. Garrett Reisman, CCDev2 Project Manager at Space Exploration Technologies, have responded today to a letter written by several Members of Congress to White House Science Advisor John Holdren regarding NASA’s Commercial Crew program.

An excerpt:

NASA has established safety standards that all commercial crew providers will have to meet before flying astronauts, and published them in its CCT-1100 series of documents. Regardless of the content of NASA’s Space Act Agreements for development stages of the competition, we are treating these documents as firm requirements….

Of course, NASA is not alone in requiring strict safety standards. Our engineering teams feature engineers with many years of experience in developing safe and reliable vehicles, at NASA and in the private sector. Tapping that experience, we have established stringent internal controls to ensure we meet both NASA’s safety requirements and our own.

Read the full text of the response below.

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By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden was up on the Hill today for back to back meetings of House and Senate committees that oversee his budget. Based on the (predictable and utterly depressing) feedback he received, its clear that key members of Congress failed Math 101 (and a few other courses) in college. It’s the only real explanation for many of their inane utterances.

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