Leaving Bigelow Aerospace

While I can’t speak too explicitly about the circumstances surrounding my departure, it’s time for me to update these chronicles to report that I’ve left my position as lead human factors analyst and radiation modeler/instrument designer at Bigelow Aerospace. I expect that this news may perplex many readers who know how long I’ve been working […]

At the Right Place at the Right Time…

Finally. On top of all of the other trouble I’ve been habitually getting myself into during the last several months, a series of unlikely and highly serendipitous events recently culminated in a sudden career shift. -One that, I might add, I’ve been pressing for and gambling on for some time. –And for longtime readers, it’s […]

Profiled in Vegas Seven Mag!

Deanna Rilling, a high-school friend of mine who now writes for VEGAS SEVEN recently reached out to do an interview about all of the trouble I’ve been getting into lately. Well, the article came out – and if you’re interested in hearing me talk about growing up in Las Vegas, the relationship between jazz improvisation […]

Boeing, Bigelow conduct CST-100 drop test over Nevada desert

Aerospace giant Boeing and commercial space-station manufacturer Bigelow Aerospace, in cooperation with the Bureau of Land Management Ely District’s Caliente Field Office, conducted a relatively quiet spacecraft parachute drop test of Boeing’s Apollo-styled Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft this past April 3rd. The event, attended by local media and several bystanders, occurred over a remote playa in […]

Airships: A century from prototype to spaceflight?

Airships. There’s a certain nostalgic thrill to the streamline, art deco aircraft heyday that nearly was. To the point (and as illustrated above): the Empire State Building’s observation tower was originally intended to serve as a mooring point for airships. Achieving the power of flight by harnessing a buoyant gas is simple, reliable, quiet, low-velocity, […]

Excalibur back in British Isles!

…commercial spacecraft manufacturer/provider Excalibur Almaz (EA), that is. And they ferried two partially-constructed commercial space stations with them. A primary competitor to Bigelow Aerospace on the commercial space station frontier, EA has leveraged 20th-Century Russian military space technology in a bid to accelerate a fully-functioning private spaceflight program to orbit. Because it is based on […]

Bigelow Aerospace preps new digs

It appears, in the interest of furnishing the new space digs (read: inflatable orbital space modules) they’re poised to launch, Bigelow Aerospace has secured a partially exclusive license from NASA. The license is for the cryptically entitled, “Apparatus For Integrating A Rigid Structure Into A Flexible Wall Of An Inflatable Structure,” – or as I […]

Bigelow Aerospace accelerates station plans

Recently, two companies have arisen to challenge Bigelow Aerospace’s domination of the commercial space station market. Now, quietly, Bigelow has fired back where it hurts most: Timeframe. It seems that the first to get a station to orbit will be in a position to pluck the ripest government and corporate space station user contracts. In […]

America’s other other space program

A quick note this morning on one of my personal favorite space ventures, JP Aerospace. As a truly DIY space endeavor, the firm has been making a name for itself for more than a decade with their concentrated, unconventional, volunteer-based business model and regular deployments of high-altitude-balloon-lofted platforms complete with telemetry, imaging equipment, and in […]

NewSpace Station-Race begins

This week has been pretty big for private space, (including astronomy / exoplanetology and development of space-related commercial products – more to come in future posts). In something of a surprise announcement, Russian NewSpace startup Orbital Technologies announced a volley of corporate agreements and a proposed private, commercial space station to launch by the year 2015. With […]