The View From Here
The View from Here: School Buses are Beautiful!
Wednesday, Sept. 19, was a huge day for us at the Space Foundation – the day that big yellow school buses began showing up at our headquarters, bringing students and teachers to the new Northrop Grumman Science Center, featuring Science On a Sphere® (SOS). Grand Opening festivities are set for Oct. 5, with a special…
The View From Here: Life Begins at 30
In our youth-obsessed American culture, turning 30 can be a traumatic change-of-life event. I was curiously unaffected by turning 30, although I will admit that I was oddly unsettled by attaining the unremarkable age of 32. Since then, I’ve come to realize that 30 represents a tremendous coming-of-age milestone, when your best years still lie ahead…
Junkyard Dogs or Outhouse Rats?
I generally try to be as upbeat and positive as possible. I’m no Pollyanna, but I subscribe to Thomas Jefferson’s theory that more gets accomplished through generosity than meanness. Yet, our Republic has arrived at a point where it is difficult to find anything generous to say about Congress or the White House, who have…
"Optimism, Captain! Optimism!"
If there’s one important thing that a focused, optimistic and sustainable space exploration program can uniquely contribute to society right now, it is a sense of optimism that has long been missing in our media, our classrooms and the dimly-lit corridors of government. At some level, I think most of us would like to break…
The View From Here: Barbarians at the Gates
Growing up in a ranch family, I heard plenty of cowboy wisdom about “closing the gates after the horses have all run off.” So I naturally tend to think about U.S. “protection” of space technologies in similar terms. Imagine a fenced-in pasture where our space technologies are grazing. The front gate is labeled “Exports,” is…
Space Industry Has More "Right Stuff" Than Ever
If there’s one thing this spring season has demonstrated, it is the fact that our space industry, around the world, has more of the “Right Stuff” than ever before. Consider, for a moment, our recently completed 28th National Space Symposium. Despite the fact that U.S. government spending on space is flat or declining and that core…
The View From Here: 28th National Space Symposium on the Launch Pad
With just two weeks until the launch of the 28th National Space Symposium, an uncanny calm has descended upon the Space Foundation. You might expect this to be a stressful, hectic time for our team, and it is certainly true that the hours are long and the preflight checklists extensive. But there’s also a deep satisfaction…
The View From Here: Inspiring!
Wherever you look, something inspiring is going on in space. It’s no secret that the Space Foundation believes that inspiration is one of the most important things that space programs provide for humanity. The word is right upfront in our mission statement (to advance space-related endeavors to inspire, enable and propel humanity), and it is the…
The View from Here: Human Spaceflight in the Year of the Dragon
This month’s The View From Here comes to us from the Space Foundation’s new special advisor – human spaceflight, Dr. Leroy Chiao: As Elliot Pulham told you in last month’s Space Watch, the Year of the Dragon is upon us! What does this mean? Dragon years in the Chinese zodiac are particularly special and lucky. Bold…
The View From Here: Welcome to the Year of the Dragon
Aloha from Colorado Springs, and welcome to 2012 — which will either be the most auspicious year ever, or the end of life as we know it, depending upon whether you ascribe to the Chinese calendar or the Mayan one. In fairness to the Maya, they never predicted the end times; rather they stopped counting…