A new wave of
commercial space companies are emerging and changing the status quo.
The next generation of university graduates should be trained to work
in such a new and diverse field. That's the line of thinking that
went into the creation of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's
Commercial Spaceflight Operations (CSO) program. Currently in its
third year, the program has exceeded expectations with three times as
many students enrolled as was projected, undergraduates only for now.
I was at ERAU's main
Daytona Beach campus all day Wednesday for a meeting of the CSO
Advisory Panel. The program is heavily influenced by the space
industry. Our input is solicited to improve the program. We also
received updates from the faculty and students. The panel present on campus also spoke to a CSO freshman class about our experiences and answered their questions.
One topic that got
me thinking was how to classify such a program. Multidisciplinary
studies by their very nature don't fit well under one category. The
curriculum involves a lot of science, engineering, and business, but
it's not a science, engineering, nor business degree. The term
“operations” also means different things to different people and
may not represent the program as a whole, but we couldn't immediately
identify a better word to substitute. Are employers looking to hire
interns or fresh-out employees influenced by a degree name, or do
they look at the bigger picture?
The
multidisciplinary nature of the program also makes hiring faculty a
challenge. A search for full-time faculty is on-going now. The
program coordinator described to me the ideal candidate: a PhD in
physics, a PhD in space law, experience teaching, and experience in
commercial space industry management. No such candidate likely
exists, but if anyone has any leads as to a potential good candidate,
have them apply.
A recent addition to
ERAU's campus is the suborbital spaceflight simulator. ERAU student
Hayley and astronaut Nicole Stott had both given me advice about
flying the sim and I was looking forward to trying it! I took off
from the runway just fine, but immediately went into a spin. I was
not used to the joystick controls! Once airborne, I stabilized and
flew my craft like an airplane, but I was too low to get to
suborbital space. I had neglected to raise my landing gear and I was
out of fuel. So, I turned around to land. On my second pass, I was in
good shape to land on the runway and was looking like I was going to
land without a hitch, but I must not have pulled my nose up fast
enough because I crashed. Tough ride, but not bad for a first timer!
The sim is still being perfected. I think it would be even better in
a centrifuge with some G forces!
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| The ERAU suborbital spaceflight simulator - October 21, 2015 |
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| In the sim before I flew and crashed my bird - October 21, 2015 |
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