It took courage and leadership for Dan Hicks and his team to carry off the first Spaceport America Cup. Leadership, because if anything went wrong, Mr. Hicks is the one wringable neck. Courage because of the complexity of the tasks to be carried out. When you have students of all ages involved with explosives, think […]
Cocktails with Dan Goldin
Cocktails with the NASA Administrator Twenty two years ago I met the NASA Administrator Dan Goldin for a cocktail at the Hotel Encanto. He was here for one of the Delta Clipper tests. The Delta Clipper or DC-X program was funded by Department of Defense the contractor was MacDonald Douglas. The DC-X, short for Delta […]
Post ISPCS discussion for Southern New Mexicans
The Space Economy and its growing influence from Southern New MexicoIt’s better to create the positive than try to deconstruct the negative. I heard this at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) which concluded last Thursday, October 8th. Creating a new commercial space industry has been a collaboration across many sectors of […]
Getting pushed over to the side of the road
Have you ever owned a jalopy and had to push it over to the side of the road? Remember what it’s like, drivers side door open, traffic stopped and you huffing and puffing to get it out of everyone’s way. When I was young my parents did not give me a car when I came […]
The Orion Space Capsule
America’s first human space program began in 1959 with the Mercury Program. The Mercury Program’s 3rd mission carried Alan Shepard in the Freedom 7 space capsule one hundred and sixteen miles to space at a speed of fifty one hundred and eighty miles per hour, mission duration was fifteen minutes. That flight took place on […]
Co-Founder of local symposium and visionary has died
Bill Gaubatz, another pioneer and visionary in the government and commercial space programs, with ties of the heart to New Mexico, died on July 5th. “The DC-X was the perfect blending of vision, goals, experience, and expertise with passion and trust,” recalled William Gaubatz, who was the DC-X program manager at McDonnell Douglas in the […]
International Space Station: Good for another 10 years and great for Las Cruces
2014 started off with an especially positive announcement for our community. NASA announced the extension of the orbiting outpost through 2024. Why does this matter to our community? NASA White Sands Test Facility (NASA WSTF) is a support facility for the International Space Station (ISS). NASA WSTF does failure analysis on micro-meteoroid orbital debris impacts […]
The Delta Clipper legacy lives on in New Mexico
On Friday, August 16th, once again I found myself setting the alarm for 3:30am to get to Spaceport America for a meeting that started at 8am. This trip was to attend the 20th Anniversary of the first Delta Clipper X, DC-X flight. In 1993, the McDonnell Douglas team, led by Dr. William Gaubatz and astronaut […]
It only takes one meeting
As sequestration begins its effect on our lives may never be fully realized or calculable. This government policy is slowly starting to pull our economy apart as budget negotiations start in Washington. Shutting down the government as a strategy didn’t work during the “Contract with America” in 1994 as non-essential government services were halted for […]
