Space is Big

I’ve been known to say that Space Is Big. Mainly with regards to the unlikely chances of one’s satellite being hit by a piece of space junk. It is so Very Big that a void was recently discovered to be over a billion light years across! However, when the first recorded hit of a working satellite by a known piece of orbital debris was of a satellite close to my heart, I wondered at the limitations of statistics. Having not only created most of the mechanical design, from overall thoughts to detailed parts and instructions, I physically put a lot of it together, too. It was one of 28 launched satellites that I have – in most cases – been involved in from the initial twinkle, through to launch, to its last beep high up in space. 

Those fun days of actually touching space hardware, and one-year projects from concept to launch, where have they gone? I suppose it depends on being in the right place at the right time:  I recently talked to a colleague, who, after twenty years in the space business, had never actually seen a project through from the start to the final end of it. He had either joined the project halfway through, or had to take on more pressing tasks along the way.

The right place at the right time…now what was I saying about the likelihood of a collision in the vastness of space??

The star crowd

Last week’s Small Satellite Conference in sweltering Utah was very enjoyable, with the usual efficiency that this conference hosts and the customary mix of satellite talk, catching up with friends, a bit of mandatory marketing, and a few student groups showing off their ability to put together a cubesat kit. 

It was the first time I’d been back in a few years and it was good to see the many familiar faces of colleagues as equally dispersed around the world as I am. A lot can happen in two decades of small satellite development, both to the world at large and the individuals behind it, so it’s always a pull when the old crowd gets together like this.  

I was particularly touched when an old friend, and fellow former Schriever Chair, presented me with a decal that had flown on the Space Shuttle:

With the town of Logan getting probably half its yearly alcohol sales from the conference alone, I look forward to the next one! Not that so much is consumed per se – most attendees are sensible space engineers, after all -, but with every hotel room in the entire town taken up, and late bookers having to stay an hour’s drive away across the Wasatch mountain range, there’s clearly a squeeze on the locals.