Jared Isaacman to lead NASA.

[MUSIC] Just a few months after his spacewalk in Polaris, Dawn, Jared Isaacman's been tapped as the incoming nominee to lead NASA. A few NASA administrators have been NASA astronauts before getting the top job, Bolden and Nelson come to mind. But if confirmed, Isaacman would be the first private astronaut to lead the US space agency, a sign of the times if ever there was one. And one has to wonder if Isaacman is confirmed, if the Hubble rescue mission he offered to personally bankroll might be back on the table. One thing's for certain, he wouldn't be doing the job for the paycheck. [MUSIC] >> T-minus. >> 20 seconds to L-O-N, 20 minutes, open aboard. [MUSIC] >> Today is December 4th, 2024. I'm Maria Varmasus and this is T-minus. [MUSIC] Jared Isaacman nominated to lead NASA. The European Investment Bank approves a 30 million euro loan to Sateliot. Orbex moves launch operations to Saxaverde. And our guest today is Nikolina Elrich, the first Scottish woman in space. She'll be sharing her story with us later in the show and in full on this Saturday's Deep Space episode. [MUSIC] Happy Wednesday everybody. We're kicking off today's show with a surprise announcement by incoming US President Donald Trump. Trump has chosen Jared Isaacman as the candidate to lead NASA under the new administration. Yes, Trump has selected the billionaire private astronaut and close associate of Elon Musk to oversee the US space agency once his term begins in January. Subject, of course, to approval by the US Congress. If confirmed, Isaacman would oversee NASA's approximately $25 billion budget and ambitious Artemis program if humans return to the moon. Trump announced the nomination on social media sharing, Jared will drive NASA's mission of discovery and inspiration, paving the way for groundbreaking achievements in space science, technology and exploration. Isaacman, for his part, accepted the nomination and added the statement, having been fortunate to see our amazing planet from space, I am passionate about America leading the most incredible adventure in human history. It is the honor of a lifetime to serve in this role and to work alongside NASA's extraordinary team to realize our shared dreams of exploration and discovery. The European Investment Bank, also known as EIB, has signed a 30 million euro loan with Sateliot to co-finance the rollout of its constellation of over 100 low-Earth orbit satellites, providing internet of things connectivity around the world. The EIB finance project aims to bolster the European Union's space connectivity. The EU hopes to offer low-cost IoT-based asset monitoring services for use in sectors like agriculture, livestock management, fisheries and other maritime activities, the management of protected areas, fire control and monitoring, and environmental applications, among others. EIB Vice President Robert DeGroote said this loan shows the EIB's commitment to innovation and development in the European space sector, thereby supporting the digital transition and contributing to the European Union's strategic autonomy in areas of space and global connectivity in the context of the EIB Strategic European Security Initiative. Last week, we reported that Scotland was due to open a third spaceport, but it seems already that that number is about to dwindle on the news that Orbex is moving to Saxaverde. Orbex had been working to establish a spaceport of their own in Sutherland, but has announced that it is moving its launch operations to Shetland. The company shared on their website that they have decided to pause construction of its own spaceport in Sutherland to enable them to direct more funding to the development of a new medium-sized launch vehicle called Proxima. Orbex says the move also better positions the business to participate in the European Launcher Challenge, which is an ESA-run competition to assist with the development of European launch capabilities and to service institutional and commercial contracts. And speaking of the European Space Agency, ESA's Eclipse Making Proba-3 mission is due to launch tomorrow, providing that they find a solution to an anomaly that was found during pre-launch preparations today. The Proba-3 will launch on a PSLV XL rocket from Satish DeVon Space Center in Sriharikota, India tomorrow, Thursday the 5th of December at 10.34 GMT, which is a 16.04 local time, by the way. The anomaly was found in the redundant propulsion system of the Coronagraph spacecraft, and this propulsion system is part of the Attitude and Orbit Control subsystem of the satellite and used to maintain orientation and pointing in space. Kind of important. The use of a software solution by the mission control team at ASSA's ESAC Center at Redu Belgium is being evaluated to allow the launch to proceed. Sierra Space has signed two new agreements to further the advancement of manufacturing in the microgravity environments of low-Earth orbit. The Memoranda of Understanding will see Sierra Space collaborate with both Astral Materials and the US subsidiary of Spaceforge on a wide range of semiconductor technologies. The MOU with Silicon Valley-based Astral Materials outlines collaboration on various projects, including those related to Sierra Space's Dream Chaser spaceplane, to include payload logistics for orbital missions as well as input on design, development, installation and integration of advanced materials, and semiconductor manufacturing payloads. Sierra Space and Spaceforge plan to collaborate on both research and development as well as proof of concept missions related to semiconductor materials, components, and related technologies to enable in-space manufacturing. RIVADA Networks has been awarded a virtual network operator contract with the US Navy to support mission-critical government communications requirements through its OuterNet satellite constellation. Under the first phase of its contract with the US Navy, RIVADA will engage in joint engineering cooperation with the Navy to delineate a virtual network architecture specifically designed to meet the Navy's needs on the RIVADA OuterNet. The company has also announced the formation of RIVADA Secure Services, which is a wholly-owned new subsidiary established as a proxy organization to serve the specialized needs of US government and defense customers. RIVADA Secure Services will be headquartered in the Washington, DC area to maintain close coordination with government customers. Umbra has been awarded the Stage 3 option of the National Reconnaissance Office's Commercial Radar Capabilities contract. Contract is part of the NRO's Strategic Commercial Enhancements Initiative and evaluates and leverages innovative commercial intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance solutions to strengthen the US government's overhead intelligence architecture. Stage 3 emphasizes scaling SAR data delivery to the US government to meet critical needs such as disaster response, environmental monitoring, and crisis management. Parsons Corporation and GlobalStar have announced a new partnership to support the public, government, and defense sectors. The organizations have also demonstrated Parsons' software-defined satellite communication solution using GlobalStar's low-earth orbit satellite constellation. The partnership aims to ensure resilient and diverse communication protocols to support a myriad of communication needs. Altair and Auburn University's Samuel Ginn College of Engineering are collaborating on a one in a quarter million AFWORKS Phase II SIDER contract. The two organizations are planning to develop analytical models for cyclonic flows, construct computational models, and study the stability of different vortex engines to address challenges that they say aerospace organizations are facing. [Music] That was a lot and that concludes our briefing for today. You'll find links to further reading on all the stories that we've mentioned in our show notes, and we've also added a contract announcement for VARDA space for reentry payload testing for AFRL, and contract announcements for Crossbow from the US Navy. Hey T-minus crew, if you find this podcast useful, please do us a favor and share a five-star rating and short review on your favorite podcast app that'll help other space professionals like you to find the show and join the T-minus crew. Thank you for your support, everybody. We really appreciate it. [Music] [Music] Our guest today is Nikolina Elrich, the first Scottish woman in space. Nikolina was part of the Blue Origin NS26 mission, which flew to the Karman Line in August of this year, and we will be sharing her full story this Saturday for our Deep Space episode. So I was born in Scotland from a very traumatic family. My mom was an alcoholic and I had an absentee father, so it was not great beginnings for me. But I'm a survivor and I kind of start through and I saw education as my way out. So I worked extremely hard and it was an entrepreneur since age of five, and I've just been doing all these odd jobs here and there from delivering papers to setting up a company that was doing jello shots to all sorts of random stuff until I found my niche in IT. So I was doing programming and I made some money through IT investment through the 80s and 90s. I loved it. It was definitely a driving. And then the bubble happened. So all of us took a great hit and I had to pivot. And I found that I wanted to do tangible assets. So I then pivoted into construction and real estate and did really well out of that. And then I was doing consulting. And companies kept coming out to me saying, "Hey, we've got a satellite system that, you know, we just don't know how to bring it to market or we've got this other system that's to do the space." And I just kind of rolled into it. You're still fresh off of your trip to space. It's still pretty recent. So please tell me about that experience. I never get sick about hearing people's experiences. I'd love to hear yours. It was the most incredible. I mean, I've done, I was so overqualified for this launch because I've done, you know, I trained in Russia before with all the cosmonauts. I've done Nastar and Philadelphia. I've done Goziorgi like 20 times. Love them. Big shout out to Goziorgi guys because I thought they would tell me I couldn't go anymore. I was always taking them space. Quite literally. But I just love all of that. So when it came to my turn to do it, I was just so prepared. I was calm. I was like bringing my whole coin to meditation and the day of the launch. We were sitting there just really fine-tuned together. And when I got into the seat and, you know, it's a five-point harness and you're clipped and tight and hard. And you've got your white knuckles holding onto the side of the rail. And you look to my right and there's this floor to ceiling window. And you see the, you know, you just see the dust outside and you think, where's this going to go? Like how, how, I can't believe I'm actually doing this. This is, this is my moment. The scariest part was like, thankfully, they train you for it. And the scariest part was like when it goes three, two, one, it doesn't actually take off from there. You have seven seconds after that number one. And so we saw that going seven, six. And when that started happening, the cabin goes red. You see fire coming up the side of your window and you see debris just flying everywhere. And you suddenly think, but you're trained for it that they tell you this beforehand saying is that seven seconds before it starts moving, that you're going to think that you're like a succulent pig and you're being fried in the middle of something, but you're not and you're good. And it will just take off and it'll start shuddering and it goes up. And the minute it just started going up, you are full thrust all the way. It's like, you know, max three, you're going almost 4,000 kilometers an hour and you're pinned down so hard that, you know, my face is contorted and making all sorts of shapes in this eye. But I kept looking one eye in the monitor and one eye out the window and I was like, I don't care how I look. This is like the ride of my life. This is what I've dreamed my whole life for. And you watch as the earth just gets smaller and smaller below you. And it's just this fragility of it all. You're watching as this suddenly it goes from light to dark, like a flick of a switch. It's something goes black and you're in space. And all that happens like within minutes. And you're standing there and you're like, your harness becomes, you know, you lift up from your seat and you think there's no space in your harness part going up. There is when you're in space, you suddenly realize there is a gap. You undo your five point harness and you just float. For me, it was more of the view. I didn't want to throw candy or throw water or do some results. I was like, I want to see the view. So I went upside down more for like aesthetics in the camera to be like, Hey, look at me. I'm upside down. I'm floating. I did that. And then I immediately turned background and clip myself back and I get a look at the window. And it was just magnetizing. They tell us to launch, don't put your hands in the windows. We don't need fingerprints because we're filming it all. There's some science experiments happening. So we need all the all the camera footage we can get. First thing I did, slap my face to the window and hand prints all over it. I was just like, I want to get out there. Oh my God, this is incredible. And I was screaming, this is incredible. Get me out there. I want to be in it. There was magnetism. I just felt so drawn into it. It was magnetic and sparkly. And it wasn't like a dark black, like a sad black. It was like a beautiful, shiny, effervescent black that I just I've never seen in my life before. And all I wanted to do was swim in it. And so I literally was like glued to the window and just thought I want to immerse myself and in my head, I'm thinking, I'm booking my next space, right? I have to get a trip. I have to start swimming. I have to experience this more. And before you know it, they're saying put your harnesses back on, clip back into seats. So everybody's like checking on one another. We all clicked in. We had little go pros did a couple of selfies all around with everyone, you know, shot them a little bit. And then we were coming down. You just see everything coming up fast, you know, and I'm just tears were streaming down my face. And I just I wanted the moment to stop. I wanted, you know, I wanted whole timeline of life to just stop. And I'm looking the fragility of the earth and that thin blue line everyone talks about. Yeah, it's really like that. Not flat, not a flat liner. It's definitely not flat. But yeah, that thin blue line was just like, okay, I need to do something that involves helping Mother Earth being part of that and bracing, you know, I love to call it patch of mama embracing patch of mama and just finding a way to bring space and earth in her harmony together as one. I mean, our mission and goal was about humanitarian causes. We had such a disruptive crew. We had, you know, I'm Muslim and a Jew and the youngest woman and like everybody was so different and eclectic, but we worked so well. And I think that's a beauty of space, eclecticism. And like, there's no, I mean, it's people talk it ad nauseam, no boundaries, no religion or nothing, but really it's and it expands your brain into so many different levels and takes your breath the way that you just think, why can't we live like this all the time? Why can't life be like this continuous? So yeah, when I came back down to earth, I came down with a studs. It was really hard for me to kind of like, you know, bring myself back into like how the world just evolves and the hate and the anger and everything else and how, you know, and I just it was great because it made me think I need to help people. I need to change that I need to do something that yeah, makes in from the roots out. So for me, it's kids. I always think if you talk to children, you encourage children, you motivate them, you enlighten them in a way that brings joy to their heart and soul, then they're going to be better people in this world. And if they're happier, better people, there's going to be less war. And if there's less war, then there's going to be more, everything's going to be better for everybody. So yeah, that was kind of that was kind of my my my 10 minute little ride, but it just made me so addicted to like, I want to do more. I want to do more. Oh my gosh. I the way you described all that, I can only imagine after such a I mean, you're up there, you're my life is forever changed, right? I mean, there's nothing will ever be the same. I mean, that is not often in life. Do we get moments like that? Maybe when like when our child is born, you know, but going into the space is definitely, you know, nothing will ever be the same. And I that what comes after I'm always so curious and you were starting to get to that. Because I mean, walking around in the on earth going, I've been to space, how do I even kind of go about my day now? What was it? Well, yeah, really, I was like, you know, you may get told by, you know, different, I work with different space agencies, and they were just like, well, Nick, you really should like get a publicist, you should arrange all this. And I just thought, why, why do I have to pay money to tell people that we can do better? I'm like, that should naturally grab, regrammatate towards people that can get that message out to the right people at the right time. And so, you know, I reached out a couple of people by myself and just said, Hey, this is my story. You know, I want people to see I'm a real rags to riches. I'm a real girl from trauma can touch the stars. You know, and I've written, I have to say there's a little bit of a plug. I did write a book about my life that's coming out next year. So it's Grit Diamond Stars. We have a little bit of a hiccup of some legality. So some people who were in it don't want to be in it anymore. So I'm rewriting them out of the book. But just fine. There's not always a way that's yeah, happens a lot. Exactly. So I'm kind of going through that the moment. So unfortunately, it's not going to hit the Christmas book list. But hopefully a summer read for next summer, but you'll be seeing reading up a little girl who goes to space and how her dreams came true. So yeah, so kind of that's my journey. I'm kind of just talking about that, talking about how anything is possible. We'll be right back. Welcome back. If you have kids or teens in your life who are into science and technology, you might have heard of the subscription box called Crunch Labs, or perhaps heard of the YouTuber and ex-NASA guy, Mark Rover. For the kids who like to put things together and then take them apart and figure out how it all works, Rover and his company, Crunch Labs, are all about teaching kids how to think like engineers and helping to train up and inspire the next generations that'll be designing, testing and building our future. And Redwire is teaming up with Rover and Crunch Labs for something that's a little less of a lesson and more on the pure fun side of things with a side of cool. Enter the SatGus mission, where kids can upload selfies. Of course it was selfies. It does spaceselfie.com. That picture will be displayed on a Google Pixel phone, a boarded satellite, and then Redwire's camera technology will snap HDR photos of the phone against Earth's backdrop and beam the whole thing back to the participants on the ground. And yes, the whole thing is on a satellite and not a balloon, and that satellite will actually be in low Earth orbit via a SpaceX Falcon 9, specifically the upcoming Transporter 12 rideshare. And participants can request even that their selfie be taken when SatGus is actually overhead their own location. So in theory, you can be in your own photo twice. Customers of Crunch Labs, T-Mobile and Google Pixel will be able to participate in all this gratis. And anyone else who isn't in those categories can join in by making a $30 donation to sponsor a free robotics kit to a future engineer in need. So yes, this is a viral stunt, but it's a pretty cool one for a STEM outreach project and part of its goal is to support underserved engineering students globally. That seems like a worthy goal to me, don't you think? The mission hasn't launched yet. Again, Transporter 12 will likely launch in January 2025, so it is plenty of time for you to sign up and get your space selfie. [Music] That's it for T-Minus for December 4th, 2024, brought to you by N2K Cyberwire. For additional resources from today's report, check out our show notes at space.n2k.com. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. You can email us at space@n2k.com or submit the survey in the show notes. Your feedback ensures we deliver the information that keeps you a step ahead in the rapidly changing space industry. N2K's Strategic Workforce Intelligence optimizes the value of your biggest investment, your people. We make you smarter about your team while making your team smarter. This episode was produced by Alice Carruth, our associate producer is Liz Stokes. We're mixed by Elliot Peltzman and Trey Hester, with original music by Elliot Peltzman. Our executive producer is Jennifer Iben. Our executive editor is Brandon Karp. Simone Petrella is our president, Peter Kilby is our publisher, and I am your host Maria Vormazes. Thanks for listening. We'll see you tomorrow. [Music] T-Minus [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]