This year was a time of transition, adjustment, and growth for me professionally. In 2016 we moved from the Space Coast of Florida to Atlanta, Georgia. We moved 4 times in 6 months, finally settling into our current home in December 2016. Atlanta is a technology hub with a small and growing space community. The year 2017 gave me the opportunity to learn, grow, and find my place within this new space community.
I won’t sugarcoat
it: I was at a low in January. I was exhausted from the moves and
felt isolated in a new area. I felt stuck in a bad contract with an
unhealthy client: overworked, significantly underpaid, and
dissatisfied with the direction of my work. Just a year after forming
my company Astralytical, I seriously considered calling it quits and
finding a traditional full-time position in my new city. I
learned some very valuable lessons about valuing myself, standing up
for myself, and structuring a contract so I’m not taken advantage
of. The experience made me a better professional and small business
owner.
The beauty of
running my own business is the freedom to change direction. In the
second week of January, I celebrated the sweet gift of a blank
canvas and refocused my efforts on the direction I wanted to grow
professionally. I published a small report predicting U.S. orbital
launch rates in 2017 (which I will soon update for 2018). I joined
local space-related organizations and met new colleagues.
In December I joined
the local NDIA chapter’s Space Committee and attended their annual
space breakfast with guest speaker George Nield of FAA AST. In
January I began attending space advocacy briefings with state-level
elected representatives and other state government officials with the NDIA Space Committee.
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| George Nield, Dec. 7, 2016 |
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| Posing at the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta - Feb. 1, 2017 |
In mid January I had
the pleasure of getting a tour of SpaceWorks and their related
companies with John Olds. I was so grateful to feel so welcomed in my
new community.
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| Hello SpaceWorks! Jan. 10, 2017 |
In February I began
a new area of business: space career coaching. This has been a very
rewarding direction. I truly enjoy assisting students, recently
graduates, and mid-level professionals in their space career
journeys. This has also been a more popular service than I intended,
demonstrating the strong demand for guidance while pursuing a space
career.
Also in February I
attended my first Georgia Space Working Group meeting. This group
quickly turned into the planning committee for the first annual
Symposium on Space Innovations hosted here in Atlanta in October.
By the end of
February, I set up the Astralytical laboratory for space resources,
focused on lunar and Martian regolith (dirt) simulant.
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| Measuring lunar regolith simulant - Feb. 17, 2017 |
In March I joined my
local astronomy club and started attending monthly meetings. I also
took my daughter to a local science museum with fun space exhibits and to the Atlanta Science Festival dressed as a mini astronaut. In
connection with the science festival, I attended a talk by astronaut
Mark Kelly.
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| Astronaut Josephine and me at the Tellus Museum - March 5, 2017 |
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| Posing with the Atlanta Science Festival mascot at the Mark Kelly talk - March 14, 2017 |
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| Atlanta Science Festival - March 25, 2017 |
In March, after the release of the Trump
Administration’s proposed budget, I passionately fought against the
cuts to the NASA Education office, an office which has significantly helped me
and so many others in starting my space career. Thankfully, these
cuts were reversed by Congress.
I was the guest
speaker at the AIAA Atlanta chapter dinner in March, which I joined
back in January. I gave some preliminary results from my
to-be-published book about millennials working in the space industry.
I got some enthusiastic and colorful responses from the older
generations, the most feedback I’ve ever gotten from a talk.
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| AIAA Atlanta talk - March 28, 2017 |
Atlanta is home to
several broadcasting companies. In June, I got a tour of the Intelsat
facility, including their antenna dish field and control centers.
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| Intelsat - June 7, 2017 |
In June I presented
preliminary research regarding Spaceport Camden to a group hosted by
Camden County, Georgia. A few days later, I was a guest speaker in
the Camden Roundtable on the same topic. I had been working on the
report for a few months at that point and was ready to discuss some
of the findings with the community that would be most impacted by the
spaceport.
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| Spaceport Camden presentation - June 15, 2017 |
In June I was a
speaker at the first annual We Rise Women in Tech conference in Atlanta,
highlighting NASA’s coding projects and needs. I was also
interviewed by the Women Who Code organization for their blog.
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| We Rise conference - June 24, 2017 |
I crashed the July
AIAA Propulsion conference networking events and got to reconnect with some
colleagues. I had the pleasure of meeting astronaut Sandy Magnus
again.
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| AIAA Propulsion conference - July 11, 2017 |
Also in July I traveled to the new Braves stadium in Atlanta to check out the traveling Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex exhibit on a Mars concept vehicle. The Batmobile design isn’t at all what a Mars vehicle would look like but it’s fun for the public.
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| Mars concept vehicle - July 16, 2017 |
Also in July I took a
trip to my old stomping ground: Huntsville, Alabama. Thanks to my
friend Yohon and a few other friends and colleagues, I got some great
tours of old and new sites at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center,
including accidentally stumbling upon a lab where I used to work.
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| So many historic sites at Redstone Arsenal and MSFC! - July 14, 2017 |
While in Huntsville,
I attended the 10th annual Space Camp Hall of Fame
Induction Ceremony. I worked as volunteer staff for the first event a
decade prior, and I’m a 6-time Space Camp alumna. It was fun to
reconnect with Space Camp and the U.S. Space & Rocket Center! I also met astronauts Charlie Bolden and Hoot Gibson again.
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| Posing with the Saturn V rocket at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center - July 14, 2017 |
In August I traveled
to the beautiful town of Helen, Georgia to see the total solar
eclipse. It was one of the most beautiful and emotional events I’ve
ever witnessed, surprisingly so. I’m now hooked and so excited for
the next total solar eclipse!
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| Solar eclipse totality from Helen, Georgia - Aug. 21, 2017 |
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| All smiles after the solar eclipse totality - Aug. 21, 2017 |
In September I was a
guest speaker for two talks in the Space Track of the huge DragonCon
in Atlanta. It was a pleasure to speak with my fellow panelists on
the topics of commercial space and NASA’s Deep Space Gateway. It was fun re-meeting private spaceflight participant Richard Garriott.
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| DragonCon! Sept. 2, 2017 |
Finally in October,
the conference planning team was able to celebrate the successful
first Symposium on Space Innovations! A lot of work brought us all
together and it was a hit. I was especially thankful to moderate a
panel on Launch, Landing, and Spaceports.
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| Astronaut Shane Kimbrough at the Symposium on Space Innovations - Oct. 19, 2017 |
In partnership with
the conference, we kicked off the Georgia Space Alliance, a nonprofit
I had been working with a team for months to create! The kick-off
party was a great success, a larger turn-out than expected with great
enthusiasm for the future.
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| Georgia Space Alliance kick-off space party with space art - Oct. 17, 2017 |
The Mission Possible
report on Spaceport Camden was finally published in November! After
many months of effort, it was so rewarding to release it to the
public and get such positive feedback. And a thank-you to those who
made the report beautiful with images and graphic art.
I had the pleasure
of reconnecting with Eric Stallmer of the Commercial Spaceflight
Federation when he came to Atlanta to be the guest speaker for the
NDIA annual space breakfast in November.
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| Eric Stallmer of Commercial Spaceflight Federation - Nov. 9, 2017 |
Earlier in the year,
I connected with another space-related organization SSPI. In
November, I attended their program on NASA broadcasting from the ISS
and elsewhere. I also got a tour of the Encompass facility which
included their antenna dish field and control centers. I was
surprised to learn all of NASA TV’s broadcasts go through that
facility.
In December, I
almost made my space movie premier! I arrived at the studio for a
fitting for the movie First Man about Neil Armstrong, but was cut due
to being visibly pregnant. Next time.
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| My First Man costume tag - Dec. 2, 2017 |
I wrapped up the
year with the 6th Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers
Conference in Broomfield, Colorado – one of my favorite
conferences! I’ve attended all six since 2010 and I’ve been on
board as conference staff for the past two. Although I got caught in
the Great Atlanta Airport Power Outage of 2017 and therefore missed
the first day of the conference, I was still able to enjoy two days
of suborbital spaceflight and space science fun.
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| Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference, Broomfield, Colorado - Dec. 18, 2017 |
I'm ending 2017 on a high. I've met so many great people and participated in wonderful spacey things in the past year! I'm grateful for where I am right now. And I suspect 2018 will be even better with more spacey plans in the works! I look forward even more to the surprises to come.
