Mike at the base of the Delta II rocket
that launched the GLAST satellite in 2008
Welcome
This website is a
somewhat autobiographical description of my involvement in and
promotion of space exploration. The purpose is to provide this
information on my history to people who do not know me that
well or do not know of my background. I hope it comes across
as more of a resume than a self-promotional bragging list. My
areas of interest include aerospace engineering, space
history, art, scale models, and space exploration.
My Artwork
If you came here to
look for my artwork, just jump right to it at this link. There, I
also talk about the different media I have tried and where it
has been leading.
It was little more
than a toy, but the telescope on a wobbly stand in the
backyard was my first window to the universe. The view thru
the eyepiece into the light polluted city sky still showed
stars and planets and a bright Moon. But my first view was
almost scary, as the image seemed to shimmer and move. The
object was supposedly a bright star, and it was round and
ghostly, and the shaky stand had no chance of providing a
steady image. So this boy wondered what he had seen. The image
was a large transparent disk. Could this little scope truly
show a star as something so large? Had I chanced upon some
alien cosmic artifact?
Months later I would realize the little telescope was simply
out of focus, but this first brush with the stars begat my
curiosity of all things above and beyond the Earth.
Cousins
Larry Mackowski was my
favorite cousin. He was a few years older so of course he was
cool. He was into rock’n’roll and did neat things. He had
model ships and airplanes. We had awesome birthday parties at
his house with all our other cousins. Larry also had a
telescope.
Once I was visiting, I think it was around Christmas time, and
Larry had a pile of photos and brochures about NASA spacecraft
and the moon and Apollo and all sorts of cool stuff. He was
using this for a high school report on the space program. I
asked where he got the materials and he said you could write
to NASA and they would send you pictures and booklets about
space. For free!
Pretty soon I was writing to NASA and found all sorts of neat
free publications they would send you. I also discovered
catalogs they had for other books and posters and things that
cost very little. That’s how I started collecting NASA
publications and this was not a small influence on getting me
interested in the space program.
Space Race
Like many of my
generation, I was inspired by the race to the Moon.
In my grade school, the teachers would roll in televisions and
we would watch in awe at the brave astronauts blasting off
from the Florida beaches. Apollo 11 landed on the moon on a
Sunday afternoon and we took pictures right off the TV screen.
I was hooked. I had to be part of this. An astronomer, a
scientist, or maybe even an astronaut.
First Models
By high school I was
seriously into scale model building. I built pretty much
everything, but I was mostly into cars, airplanes, and of
course, spacecraft. I built the original Star Trek Enterprise,
all the Revell Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo kits. My brother
and I did some model rocketry, too.
At some point I started scratchbuilding. The first one was the
Surveyor lunar soft landing probe. I built it from photos to
no particular scale. I used wooden swizzle sticks (then
popular for mixed drinks), car model hubcaps, pieces of
cardboard, and other bits from mostly car model kits. I sent a
photo of it to the AIAA Student Journal and they published it,
which I thought was very cool at the time.
In high school I filled a display case with my models. Some
were speculative, like taking paper plates, stacking a layer
between them, adding some fishing bobbers for fuel tanks, and
turning all of that into a futuristic spaceship. I still have
some of them.
That Memorable Christmas Kit
One Christmas I got the big
1/48th scale Apollo CSM-LM with Saturn Launch
Adaptor. I remember spending a good chunk of the
holiday break building it. I still have it and
treasure it.
The neat thing about it was that
it had all these moving parts. It came apart so you
could simulate an entire Apollo moon mission. The
Launch Escape Tower came off. The SLA petals
unfolded on hinges and you could pull off the CSM
and dock it to the LM. The lander had fold out legs.
Awesome when you are 15 and NASA is about to land
people on the Moon for the first time.
Engineering as a
Career
My mom’s cousin was an
engineer and we visited them in Pasadena when I was in high
school. I looked up at the Moon on Christmas Eve in 1968,
deliberately burning into my memory the image of the Moon in
the sky knowing that, at that instant, there were three people
in a small spaceship in orbit about it. I was 15.
I think that’s when I figured a degree in engineering was my
route to the space program. Being an astronomer might be neat,
but I frankly didn’t think I was smart enough, as a PhD would
be really difficult, and jobs in engineering seemed more
likely than one in pure science.
A year or two later we took a family vacation to the
Southwest. That probably inspired my brother to go to college
in New Mexico, and me, Arizona (after one year at home at
Marquette). Arizona had a great climate, a good engineering
program, fairly low out of state tuition, a co-op engineering
program, and a broad undergraduate astronomy program (photo of
Kitt Peak, above). In Tucson, I could take several astronomy
classes and still major in engineering. I would learn about
the things astronomers study with their space-borne
instruments, making me more valuable as an engineer since I
would have more understanding of the mission the satellites
would be designed for.
The Elf Hive
While in school in Tucson, there were some
interesting folks that either lived there or came
thru town. We had a Eric Drexler speak on nano
technology. He was an early proponent of space
colonies.
I
visited the tiny office of the then-new L5 Society
and their leader, Keith Henson. Their goal was to
start building space colonies once the Space Shuttle
would start flying. They were dead serious and could
not understand why it should take more than a couple
of years to design and build a space habitat for a
few hundred people. I appreciated their enthusiasm
but was disappointed at their naivete.
Creativity:
Engineering and Art
My
basic yearning in life is to be a creative person.
That
is why I am an engineer
That is why I
build models
That is why I
dabble in painting
That is why I
enjoy photography
That is why I
continue to try to learn new things
I was able to do all
of that in college. The learning part was obvious, and below
are some early examples of some of the other outlets for my
creativity.
This is a 1/12th scale model of the Viking
Mars lander I built my senior year in college, around
1977.
This is a mural I painted in the student lounge in
the aerospace engineering building. The building has since
been demolished.
I still enjoy building models and doing paintings today, as I
have been doing this for a long time. See my Facebook page
(Michael Mackowski) for my latest projects. I like to write
and publish newsletters and magazine-style publications (see
last page of this site).
1997 watercolor study of Sedona, Arizona
More About My Art
Recently (early 2022) I
spent some time trying to figure out where I was heading with
my art hobby. What was I trying to achieve? What media should
I be using? How can I get better results with my acrylic
landscapes? How can I paint looser (since I doubt I will find
the time to get better at representational paintings)? Can I
find a technique or approach that I can take when I travel?
I wrote up a lengthy essay on this that you can see at this link.
Huntsville
One reason I went to
the University of Arizona was that they had a co-op
engineering program. This is where a student takes off from a
semester of study to go work in their field. You get
experience, a preview of your career, and some money. I needed
to help finance my way through school and this would prove to
be very helpful on my resume. A student from Purdue
transferred to the UofA and brought his connections to NASA’s
Marshall Space Flight Center with him. I was accepted into
this program in my sophomore year, after only a single
semester in Tucson.
So there I was in Alabama, still a teenager but now a NASA
employee. Pretty cool for a kid who just a few years earlier
discovered free NASA photos in his cousin’s bedroom.
Mike in the Skylab mock-up in Huntsville, 1973
Southern Discomfort
While the idea of being a young
NASA engineer was incredibly cool, the reality of
living in three cities over a span of four years was
a hit on my social development. At that age, young
men are very interested in getting to know young
women, and when you change cities every 3 or 6
months, it makes it difficult to make friends, much
less relationships. It all worked out, but it was
not always easy.
I spent three semesters at Marshall, from 1973 to 1975. These
were six month stints, from January until June. This span
included the launch of Skylab, which was a Marshall program. I
ran into Werner von Braun in an elevator, and with some other
co-ops, went to the Apollo-Soyuz launch in 1975. This was the
last Saturn rocket to be launched.
ASTP Launch, July 15, 1975
McDonnell Douglas
McDonnell Douglas
Astronautics Company (MDAC) hired me as an electrical engineer
in 1977. It was completely serendipitous that they assigned me
to work on power systems. I went with them because they were
in the Midwest (my other options were in California, which
seemed too crazy and crowded) and they were clearly in the
space business. They built satellite power modules for NASA
Goddard and were working on a new type of battery using nickel
hydrogen technology. They were also bidding on the Galileo
Jupiter probe and were developing an auto-activated silver
zinc battery for that long mission.
By 1981 the Reagan administration was threatening to cancel
the Jupiter mission. NASA had just accomplished an exciting
Pioneer mission to the outer planets and now this was to be
the first orbiter at the King of Planets. The mission was
delayed and restructured multiple times. Although MDAC did not
win the contract for the probe, the battle to save Galileo
motivated me to get involved in promoting space to the public.
It had been too many years between planetary missions and
there was no way we could let Congress stop the exploration of
the solar system.
McDonnell Douglas concept for the Galileo Jupiter
Probe, 1977
Meanwhile, I
led studies on nickel hydrogen battery technology for
satellites, built a prototype battery, dissected failed cells,
and in between supported the Modular Power Subsystem program.
An especially fun program was a laser hardening research
program. The US was concerned about directed energy threats to
satellites so we developed special reflective coatings and
tested them by shooting up satellite components with a high
power laser.
Nickel Hydrogen battery cells, circa 1979
MDAC kept trying to get into the satellite business. St. Louis
had Mercury, Gemini and Skylab (the Airlock module) as their
space heritage and they put in a serious bid for the Space
Shuttle program. But MDAC had never built a complete satellite
and we could never break into that business. We had the
technology but our costs were always too high and we could
never overcome the experience of companies like TRW, Lockheed
(Sunnyvale), or Ball.
Heritage and Hope
McDonnell Douglas was
a very cool place to start one’s career. The place reeked with
history and the promise of future technology. You could take a
walk around the assembly hall where they were building F-4
Phantoms. I was around when the first F-15s and F-18s were
rolled out. I walked thru the test building with its huge 24
foot vacuum chamber where Gemini and Skylab were built and
tested. Famous astronauts walked these halls only a few years
prior. My mentors were guys who built John Glenn’s capsule.
What a place to be!
McDonnell Douglas photo of 24 ft chamber
We built the Aft Propulsion System pods for the Space Shuttle
orbiter. We were way behind schedule on that so they put
everyone and their uncle on drafting boards to get drawings
released. I worked overtime for months after only a year or so
with the company cleaning up wire harness installation
drawings. That was a pretty low point. Doing blueprints at a
drafting table was not my idea of designing new spacecraft.
The hours and work environment were not particularly
motivating.
But eventually there came new programs to make up for that. We
build a commercial electrophoresis experiment that flew on the
Shuttle with the first non-government astronaut. Charlie
Walker sat three desks over from me in the big engineering
bullpen. He was also a hard core space enthusiast and he
positioned himself to make three Shuttle flights. The
Challenger accident put an end to that program, but we were
still involved in very ambitious space industrialization
concepts. I think the coolest thing was having “Advanced Space
Programs” on my business card.
And perhaps the most ambitious program that I became involved
with was the National Aerospace Plane (NASP), also known as
the X-30. This was to be a single stage to orbit manned
vehicle that took off from a runway and used multi-cycle
engine technology to fly itself into orbit. What an audacious
concept! I did trade studies and research to come up with the
best electrical power system for an aircraft with no rotating
machinery like traditional aircraft where you could tap power.
That was where I learned to use a spreadsheet on a PC. I’ve
been doing power system trades that way ever since. Of course
that program tried to do more than the technology of the day
would allow, so it eventually was cancelled. But it was fun.
NASP concept for runway to orbit
The St. Louis operation’s only real hardware in unmanned space
was the Modular Power Subystem, part of NASA Goddard’s
Multi-Mission Modular Spacecraft (MMS). Working on those
programs (Solar Max, Landsats 4 and 5, TOPEX, GRO, etc.)
firmly established me in the space power world. MDC St. Louis
was never able to get into the satellite business, and
eventually the MPS program started to fade. They tried to get
involved in the Huntington Beach division’s space station work
but that didn’t pan out, either. I did a nine month cross
training stint in marketing but that never meshed well with my
mellow personality and it soon became obvious that St. Louis
had no future in the space business.
Spaceweek
The attacks (from
various fronts) on space programs like the Shuttle and Galileo
(Jupiter orbiter and probe) and reactions to the Challenger
tragedy and controversy over military programs like Star Wars
identified a need for spokesmen for space advocacy. I didn’t
see many people doing anything about it, so I attempted to
fill that role, and had some success, at least in the St.
Louis area.
My personal involvement began in April of 1981 with the battle
for Galileo and my discovery of Spaceweek. The Spaceweek
movement was a public outreach centered on the July 20
anniversary of the first moon landing. It was too late to pull
off a Spaceweek event in the summer of 1981 but this was the
start of organizing the space activist community in the St.
Louis area. I made contacts with the St Louis Science Center
and the local AIAA section and we planned events for July of
1982. I found some members of the L-5 Society at Washington
University and they put me in touch with a reporter at a St.
Louis television station which really helped our initial
publicity campaign. Eventually I found other like-minded
people and we formed a local chapter of the L5 Society, later
part of the National Space Society.
Through these organizations, we sponsored many public
displays, put on special events, held seminars, wrote letters
to the newspaper, did television and radio interviews, and
gave numerous talks to schools and civic groups. The goal was
to have the St. Louis Space Frontier Society (SLSF), and its
technically knowledgable members, be the resource the media
would contact to get an independent opinion on space topics.
The tricky part was establishing our technical credentials
without speaking on behalf of our employer (this was reserved
for the public affairs department). It turned out to be a
win-win. McDonnell Douglas happily sent requests for speakers
our way, and we could provide the media with info and opinions
independent of the constraints of a large government
contractor.
Spaceweek mall display, 1983
The first St. Louis Spaceweek (1982) was a week long series of
events that came off nicely with decent attendance. For that
first effort the biggest problem was paying for speakers and
other expenses. The Star Trek II movie came out in June and we
did an advance screening as a fund raiser. We also made
t-shirts and sold those. The resultant media coverage, the
real goal of the program, was a bit disappointing but we were
happy with this first effort.
On the Fringe of Space
One of the problems was that
pro-space groups often came across as a bit on the
fringe. For example, the January 1982 issue of L5
News ran an article titled “Space Colonies can Stop
Nuclear War”. That’s just silly and that sort of
thought process made it difficult to get mainstream
aerospace companies willing to work with groups like
L5. This was clear from a meeting I had with MDAC
president John Yardley. He was sympathetic but
corporately there was little he could offer.
Meanwhile the national
L5 Society held their first Space Development Conference in
April and I was able to attend several of those over the
years. Occasionally I was able to get McDonnell Douglas to
sponsor my expenses. Through these conferences and our
associations with the national L-5/National Space Institute,
AIAA, and Spaceweek organizations, we made a lot of contacts
and established a good reputation for putting on successful
outreach programs in St. Louis. The subsequent years were more
successful in terms of publicity. We were learning how to do
this, how to be promoters.
The Wall
Street Journal, Nov. 16, 1983 - "Space Activists Go into
Political Orbit, with Far-Out Goals"
During the 1980s we had some fairly successful Spaceweek
programs. Speakers included John Yardley, Charlie Walker (MDAC
astronaut), Torrance Johnson (JPL Voyager scientist), Bruce
McCandless (astronaut), Wendell Mendell (planetary scientist),
Bob Overmyer (astronaut), Rep. Harold Volkmer (NASA
appropriations committee), Kerry Joels (NASM), Warren James
(JPL), Marcia Smith (CRS), Charlie Duke (astronaut), and many
others. This continued for ten years or more, into the early
1990s.
Astronaut Robert Overmyer at a 1983 Spaceweek event
St. Louis Space
Frontier
In the early 1980s the
cold war was in full swing and Reagan’s Star Wars program
added some complications. Some space advocates saw it as an
opportunity to develop the technology needed for large scale
space development. Others saw it as counter to the peaceful
exploration of space. The Carter and Reagan administrations
decimation of the planetary exploration program resulted in no
NASA launches beyond Earth orbit from 1978 (ISEE-3) until 1989
(Magellan). So there were a lot of dynamics going on - the new
Shuttle program, a lack of planetary missions, Star Wars, a
thriving Soviet space station effort, controversy over funding
for the Space Station, and the emergence of grass roots groups
expecting to build space colonies within the decade.
SLSF exhibit at the 1985 VP Fair
With Spaceweek as a focus project, the local chapter of the
L-5 Society was up and running by 1982 as the St. Louis Space
Frontier. A high school science teacher (Tom Becker) got on
board and we started doing a lot of work with K-12 students,
teachers, including a lot of talks to kids. In addition to
Spaceweek, we had a speakers bureau and I gave about one talk
each month for a couple years in the late 1980s. By 1987 the
national planners for the SDC were asking the St. Louis
chapter to plan the educational track for that conference. By
this time I had developed a “Satellite Design Class” that
could be adapted for presentations from grade 4 through
adults. I still use an updated version of this presentation in
2012. We promoted the “MIr Watch” program to observe the
Soviet space station during its twilight overhead passes
(where’s ours?). See this link to a video of some of the local
television news coverage we got for Mir Watch. Meanwhile Bill
Proxmire was trying to kill the Space Station.
Somehow the company got wind of my enthusiasm for space. After
my wife and I attended the first Space Shuttle launch on our
own, the company sent me as a guest to the STS-5 launch. I
think they had slots for such guests since this was the first
McDonnell upper stage (PAM-D) on the shuttle. I was written up
in the company newsletter in 1990 (below). We started an
employee club for space enthusiasts. We had exhibits at
festivals like Earth Day and the VP Fair (July 4th celebration
at the Arch). What great times!
Mir Watch
McDonnell Douglas newsletter article
I did TV and radio interviews, networked with local science
museums, attended several International Space Development
Conferences (and got McDonnell to pay for them). In 1988 I was
elected to the Board of Directors of the National Space
Society. By the next year, SLSF had 89 members, 56 of which
were NSS members. In 1990 we did a space education workshop
for teachers which was very successful. This included Young
Astronauts, Parks College, Gifted Resource Council, Civil Air
Patrol, etc. We (“we” being the local Spaceweek committee and
the SLSF) were recognized for our work by receiving the L-5
Society’s outreach award in 1988 (below) and the St. Louis
AIAA section awarded me the “Civic Award” in 1990 (?) for my
outreach activities.
St. Louis
Space Frontier won this chapter award in 1988
But by the early 1990s
the SLSF leadership was getting frustrated and burned out. The
Science Center had their own agenda and was not always
enthusiastic about hosting our Spaceweek activities. The SLSF
club was involved in a lot of other events (NSS symposiums,
mall exhibits, etc.), but it was never clear that we were
really accomplishing anything. The battle in Congress for
space station funding seemed never-ending and frustrating. One
of our leaders described the general public as:
Unmotivated (they
support space, but not strongly)
Uneducated (a few
know a little, but not much)
Uninterested (who
cares?)
It became tough to
keep this up.
Moving On
The recession of the
early 1990s hurt aerospace hard and the fall of the Soviet
Union hit defense budgets. McDonnell was laying people off and
there was no future there for someone interested in the space
business. Fortunately an understanding manager identified a
need for a power systems engineer at a McDonnell Douglas
office in Maryland. While we had a lot of friends after 15
years in St. Louis, some of them were similarly affected so in
1992 we decided to head east and I was soon working as a
contractor on NASA Goddard programs.
That was a very smart move professionally. In St. Louis I was
lost in a company focussed on tactical missiles and weapons
systems.
In St. Louis I also had over extended myself with volunteer
activities, becoming involved in too many groups. After moving
to Maryland, it made sense to take a break. With two NASA
centers (Goddard and HQ) right there and being the nation’s
capital, there was little call for local citizen space
advocates. So I took a hiatus from explicit advocacy and spent
more time with my young family.
I met good people at NASA and learned some very useful
satellite design skills. After a couple of year the McDonnell
Douglas office in Maryland became involved in an interesting
new opportunity. Because the NASA contracts came and went
every few years, this office was looking for other types of
work. We wound up involved with supporting Motorola and their
ambitious Iridium program.
This enabled me and my family to move to Arizona in 1996 where
both our parents lived. And I got to work on one of the more
interesting and fast paced efforts in my entire career.
Iridium
While living near
Washington DC was interesting from a cultural point of view,
the lifestyle was a bit hectic and the local and national
politics was often too much to deal with. Getting a chance to
live near family in Arizona and work on a commercial program
as audacious as Iridium was a great opportunity. One example
of the unique and innovative aspect about Iridium was that
they applied redundancy at the spacecraft level. Each vehicle
was mostly single-string, so if one satellite failed, you just
plugged in another satellite. The incremental cost of spare
satellites was cheaper than developing an ultra-reliable
spacecraft.
Then there were the aspects of launching 14 satellite in 8
days from three different continents. I did not travel to the
launch sites (except once to Vandenberg) but I did a lot of
testing and launch operations support from Arizona. It was a
challenge and a lot of fun coming up with ways to control and
keep track of so many vehicles on orbit. From a power systems
engineer perspective, it was the world’s best battery life
test you could imagine.
Mike at Vandenberg payload processing facility with
several Iridium satellites
Another
pleasant part of Iridium is that it may have been the best
camaraderie of any group of engineers I have ever worked with.
We had a lot of social outings and holiday parties. These were
gatherings at peoples homes, although there were very nice
company-sponsored events as well. It was a great team, and
even though I was a contractor (still a McDonnell
Douglas/Boeing employee) in a big company (Motorola)
environment, I was treated as much a team member as any
Motorola employee.
Iridium was a fascinating program and an engineering wonder,
but a business bust. Once all 98 satellites were up and
running, the cellular phone industry had become ubiquitous,
greatly reducing the need for a service like Iridium. Follow
on programs like Teledesic soon faded away and it was time to
move on again.
Family
Living in Arizona was great for
my family. My parents had retired there from
Wisconsin back in the 1980s and my wife's parents
and some siblings lived in the Phoenix area. After
many years of having no family nearby this was a
nice change.
Arizona
When Iridium wrapped
up I reluctantly left Boeing (who had bought McDonnell
Douglas) and followed many of my co-workers who moved over to
Spectrum Astro, and that has worked out very well. Spectrum
Astro was ramping up on a number of missile defense programs
and needed engineers. This finally gave me the opportunity to
be the power system lead on several programs, including Swift,
GLAST/Fermi, and Landsat 8. Around 2004 Spectrum Astro was
bought by General Dynamics, and after that didn’t work out,
the unit was purchased by Orbital Sciences in 2010. In early
2015, Orbital Sciences and ATK merged to form Orbital ATK.
Meanwhile, the grass roots space movement had lost its
momentum, at least from my perspective. I’m not sure if it was
that we finally got a space station (that battle was won) and
innovative programs like the DC-X were actually seeing
hardware, so perhaps there was less incentive for citizen
activists. Maybe it was just my personal perception as there
was no advocacy club in Phoenix. Several attempts were made to
start a chapter of the National Space Society but I didn’t
have the energy to do it all myself again. Eventually (around
2011) a Phoenix NSS chapter was established well enough that
they were having regular meetings at a fixed location. But it
wasn’t like the 1980s in St. Louis.
I hooked up with the local AIAA section and focussed on
working with K-12 schools. We did some outreach with schools,
science fairs, and events like the 50th anniversary of Yuri
Gagarin’s and John Glenn’s spaceflights, and a Science and
Technology Festival. Orbital has been very supportive for some
of these outreach events. We held the 2011 celebration of 50
years of manned space flight, a Yuri’s Night event in 2011 and
a forum and tour all at Orbital that year. In 2012 I was
awarded a national level Sustained Service award from AIAA. In
March 2015 we co-sponsored the first SpaceUp
Phoenix un-conference (which I personally headed up) and
that went very well.
There has been slow progress in growing the Phoenix chapter of
the National Space Society. In early 2013, I became the
chapter president and have held that post thru 2016. The
Phoenix Chapter of NSS now has regular monthly meetings and
participated in several Yuri's Night events each April. On my
own, I was able to attend the local Space Access Conference in
2013. In May of the same year, I participated in a space
modeling panel at Spacefest in Tucson, which was a lot of fun.
I had a scale model display and hands-on paper model activity
in the STEAM area of Spacefest VII in June of 2016 and also
exhibited at Spacefest in 2017 and 2018. My thoughts on
current topics in the space world can be found on the Phoenix
NSS blog at nssphoenix.wordpress.com
although I pretty much stopped posting opinion pieces at the
end of 2015.
AIAA
exhibit at a teacher resource fair in 2010
Mike with a cardboard wind tunnel developed thru
the AIAA section
The nation is still in a space funk. We never committed to a
real follow-on to the space shuttle. The shuttle was a
technological wonder but operationally a wrong turn. It never
delivered on the idea of lower cost via reusability. You don’t
need a manned vehicle to deliver heavy payloads to orbit.
Splitting crew delivery from cargo makes sense, and having it
done “commercially” (whatever that means) is a good approach.
I like the approach of having private industry develop a new
generation of Earth to LEO crew taxis as it frees up NASA to
focus on deep space opportunities. If private companies can
make a buck mining asteroids, that would be wonderful.
But we can’t seem to decide on what to do next regarding true
exploration. This is not a new problem. We’ve done all the
cheap and easy missions so it is not obvious what the next
step ought to be. A manned Mars mission is too risky for a
president to support politically and anything less is too
conservative (wimpy) so we end up doing nothing.
The activist organizations (NSS and newer ones with more
focussed agendas like the Moon Society) are still around but
they seem to have less urgency. After all, we have an exciting
robotic Mars program and a functioning space station that has
been continuously occupied for over twenty years. Wasn’t that
our goal in 1990?
In the early 21st century the role of these organizations is
in flux. Years ago if you wanted to learn about the latest
news in space exploration or if you wanted to hang around with
people interested in that subject you had to join a club and
attend a meeting or go to a conference. Now you can do all of
that on the Internet. I have a difficult time coming up with a
reason to join the National Space Society.
In 1987 the SLSF had a discussion on how to be more successful
as an organization. We were looking at what we were selling.
It was more than just memberships and newsletters. Joining our
group would not get you merely a subscription, but also access
to a social group for like-minded people, an opportunity to
network with people with backgrounds in aerospace, education,
library service, etc. But now you can do all that on line. You
don’t need a “meat-space” organization. At least that seems to
be the current trend. But I believe that virtual associations
are lacking something. There is much to be said about face to
face get-togethers, but this website is not the place to delve
into that topic.
Scale Models
I’ve been building
model kits since I was a youngster, and it should not be
surprising that I have specialized in building models of space
vehicles. I’ve already mentioned that my first scratch built
project was a Surveyor back in junior high school. I have done
a lot of kits as well as many super-detailed and scratchbuilt
models since then. In order to build accurate models of
historical spacecraft I had to do a bit of research and
digging. Fortunately my time as a co-op student at NASA
Marshall and my early days at McDonnell got me access to a lot
of interesting historical resources. As I have also always
enjoyed writing, and the related creative outlet that was
originally called desktop publishing, as well as feeling
somewhat of an obligation to share what I found, I have
written several modeling handbooks related to historical space
topics. So I build models and then write about how to build
them.
1/48th scale Apollo Lunar Module from the Monogram
kit with a lot of added detail
Space In Miniature
More info on this activity can
be found on my website, www.spaceinminiature.com.
That is where I describe my publications and make
them available for sale to hobbyists. There are also
many photos there of model I have built over the
years, as well as some hard to fund reference info
and photos from Mercury and Gemini programs, for
example.
I have also been active in the International Plastic Modelers
Society, having been a member since 1974 and attended
many national and regional conventions that this group
sponsors. I have given seminars on real space modeling for
many years at the national events, and was head judge for
their Space and Science Fiction division from around 1990
though 2007. In the 1980s I had a regular column on space
models in their quarterly publication. I have held many
positions at the local club level in St. Louis and Phoenix and
was very involved in running their national conventions in
1983, 1991, 2004 and 2010. Currently I am the regional
coordinator for the four state Region 10 (Arizona, Colorado,
New Mexico, and Utah).
Judging sci fi figures at the 2012 IPMS National
Convention
I have also built some models for my employer, going back to
missile concepts in St. Louis and satellite designs for
McDonnell Douglas and now Orbital. Recently I have been
developing paper models of Orbital satellites which have been
used by our NASA customer for their educational campaigns
(Landsat 8 and ICESat 2).
1/20th scale model of the Swift
satellite (left) and a 1/48th scale paper model of ICESat
2 (right)
In early 2019 I finished a paper model of the InSight Mars
lander, since apparently no one else had made one available.
This is available (in two versions) on the Space In Miniature
website.
Recent Personal
Appearances and Related Outreach Activities
I still do a fair
amount of outreach to students and the general public although
not as much as I used to. See this link for a listing of some
of my activities thru early 2024.
Exploring Pluto
In July of 2015, the
curtains were pulled back on the one of the deepest, darkest
secrets of the Solar System, and Pluto was revealed. The New
Horizons spacecraft traveled for almost ten years on a journey
to explore this small dwarf planet. With this mission,
humankind has completed the initial reconnaissance of all of
the classical planets. In other words, the fly by of Pluto was
the last time we saw the details of one of these planetary
bodies for the first time.
Think about the significance of this. This initial exploration
of the solar system has taken over fifty years, from the
Mariner 2 Venus fly by in 1962 and the first close-up images
of Mars by Mariner 4 in 1964. Some of us who were born at the
right time have seen all of these unveilings. Each new space
probe changed our view of the planets from fuzzy blobs in
telescopes to crater and mountain covered worlds in their own
right. As the spacecraft and instruments got more
sophisticated, more and more details and wonders were
revealed. These achievements surprised us with craters on
Mars, volcanoes on Jupiter’s moons, geysers on a moon of
Saturn, rings around Uranus, and on and on.
But poor Pluto lies at the edge of the solar system, demoted
by some from real planet-hood to merely a “dwarf” chunk of
rock and ice. It took over twenty-five years from the initial
proposals for a Pluto mission to the July 14, 2015 close
encounter.
I think that the true significance of the New Horizons mission
is not what has been revealed about the surface features of
Pluto, but what it tells us about ourselves. We will never
again have a first encounter with a historical planetary body.
This means we have sent our robot emissaries to all the major
bodies in the Sun’s family. That is an incredibly historic and
momentous achievement. This event is more about what humanity
is capable of doing than about how many craters are on Pluto.
This is an achievement for humanity, for all of the people of
Planet Earth, not just for the scientists and engineers. In
these times when there is so much news about death and hatred,
it can remind us that we are one people all living together on
one small planet in a very large universe. Perhaps it can
inspire us to look beyond our petty differences and ancient
prejudices and consider ourselves as one humanity, joined by
our common bond to this fragile planet we call home. Perhaps
by conceiving the heavens, we can flourish on Earth.
My Memoir
Around 2012, I decided
that I ought to write up a detailed history of the various
activities noted in this website. I found that you can
self-publish books (hard copy and digital) on Amazon, so I
took all the old notes I kept from St. Louis, wrote a
chronology, and then turned it into a narrative. I added some
description of my more recent activities in Arizona, and that
turned into “Adventures in Space Advocacy - A Personal Story
of Space Activism.”
This book tells the story of my involvement in grass roots
advocacy for a more robust American space program. The book is
an account of the activities, successes, failures, and impact
of space advocacy groups I was part of in St. Louis, Missouri
and Phoenix, Arizona. The first part of the book is a
chronology of the St. Louis space community from the nascent
years of space activism in the 1980s. The second part covers
the author’s efforts as a space activist in Phoenix some
twenty years later.
This history is a narrative developed from the my personal
notes and recollections as a member of the local chapters of
the L5 Society and the National Space Institute (later to
merge into the National Space Society). It closes with some
reflections on whether those dreams of a hopeful future from
the 1980s had any effect on the realities of the 2010s.
My hope is that historians of the space movement will find
this to be an interesting first-hand account of grass-roots
efforts to promote space exploration to the public. Similarly,
current space activists can learn from these examples of how
to execute large pro-space events.
Hard copy ($8.95 plus shipping), Kindle edition ($4.95)
Retirement
I turned 65 in 2018
and decided (since that made me eligible for Medicare) I would
retire that year. I hung around work long enough to get the
design phase completed for a main power electronics box for a
program I was supporting (STPSat-6, eventually launched over
three years later). I also stayed to support the launch and
early orbit operations campaign for the ICESat-2 satellite we
built in Gilbert, AZ. That was a nice way to wrap up a career.
And by that time, my employer completed the transition to
becoming Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems. My last day at
work was Oct. 4, 2018.
In retirement I feel like I have never been busier, but at
least I get to pick what I am busy doing. Maura and I are
doing a number of fixer-up projects around the house and I am
spending a lot of time downsizing. It takes time to get rid of
things you spent a lifetime collecting. But we are making
progress. We are also traveling a bit, trying to escape the
summer heat by heading to cooler places during those months.
I've also picked up on my wife's genealogy hobby and have
researched my Polish ancestors back into the 19th century.
More models are getting built. The Gemini collection project
is mostly complete (photos below) and I wrote it up as another
SIM book. I was hoping to spend more time on my secondary
hobbies (painting, fishing, etc.) but have made little
progress there. I’d really like to learn to do 3D CAD design
so I can get custom model parts printed but I have not even
scratched that itch. I still do some space activism and
outreach, and kick-started the local AIAA Section back into
gear after a few years of dormancy. That meant I had to be Chair for those two years
(2019-2021). I
helped organize another SpaceUp Phoenix on March 23, 2019
but have slowed down a lot on K-12 outreach. I need to let
that go and have a younger generation take on that effort. COVID
slowed down a lot of those activities but it looks like we are
recovered as of this writing in early 2024. I am still very
involved with AIAA and have been their History Committee Chair
since May 2022.
My initial collection of Gemini
concept vehicle models
Later additions to the Gemini
fleet
So life goes on and I stay very busy. The best way to keep up
with me is my personal Facebook page, the Space In Miniature
Facebook page, the Space In Miniature website, and my Flickr
photo albums.
Judging sci fi figures at the 2012 IPMS National Convention
