Astronaut for Hire

The 2013 Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) took place earlier this week in Broomfield, Colorado. This year's suborbital science meeting had some big shoes to fill after featuring a keynote by Neil Armstrong last year , but it did not disappoint. NASA's Deputy Administrator Lori Garver surprised everyone by stating the space agency may start funding researchers to fly with their spaceflight experiments, as this Space News article by Jeff Foust so eloquently summarized: "NASA officials said this week that, for the first time, they are open to funding flights of people, and not just experiments, on commercial human suborbital launch vehicles expected to enter service as early as next year." For over a year, my colleague in Astronauts4Hire has been navigating the tricky policy ground between NASA's desire to accelerate the commercial human spaceflight industry with its conservative need to minimize liability to achieve research resul...

A year after I submitted my second astronaut application to NASA, it would seem my journey in the current selection has come to an end. Multiple reports have confirmed that NASA has already chosen and brought in all interviewees to Houston as of last week. I wish all applicants still in the running the best of luck going forward. Earlier today, I spoke with NPR's Jacki Lyden on All Things Considered about my astronaut ambitions and the current NASA astronaut selection. Bracketed by great soundbytes from Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey , the story addressed the future of NASA and tackles how commercial space endeavors will usher in a new era of human space exploration. Other people interviewed in the 11-minute segment include astronauts John Grunsfeld and Michael López-Alegría . Listen here : Podcast Powered By Podbean One of the things we talked about during the interview was how competitive it is to become an astronaut. Here's how the current s...

The new video from Astronauts4Hire is now available. It showcases much of the commercial astronaut training I have been doing with the organization and explains how A4H provides educational, training, and research opportunities to support the growth of a commercial astronaut workforce. Watch it on YouTube or just click below: Special thanks to Oceans Aloft and Rusty Rogers for filming and producing the video. A4H training partners Survival Systems USA , SIRIUS Astronaut Training , and the NASTAR Center generously allowed us to shoot the footage at their facilities. Additional footage comes from the parabolic flight campaign I helped carry out testing a biomedical monitoring system in microgravity with A4H research partner Vital Space .

image credit: SpaceX Two weeks ago SpaceX made history by successfully sending its Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS) and returning it safely to Earth. Like so many others, I was glued to NASA TV throughout the critical mission phases watching as history unfolded. This marks a real turning point in the commercial development of low Earth orbit. Although this was a cargo demonstration mission, it will pave the way for manned flights in both the private and public sectors, which is good news for NASA astronauts since they need a ride to the ISS. "Dragon took one giant leap last week in restoring an American path to space." That's what Astronaut Tom Jones had to say in a recent Popular Mechanics article . Against the backdrop of the SpaceX achievement, Southern California Public Radio interviewed me for a story titled "Dream jobs: What's it like to be an astronaut?" The 7-minute comprehensive story also includes stateme...

We are moving from an era of limited government-controlled space access using very expensive vehicles to more affordable systems developed by the private sector that can provide frequent trips to space for a variety of purposes.  Multiple companies are rushing to be the first to market, including Virgin Galactic , XCOR Aerospace , Armadillo Aerospace , Blue Origin , and Masten Space Systems . Their varied technological approaches and flight plans offer researchers a great deal of options for studying the suborbital realm.  The sky is not the limit! Last month I attended the 2012 Next Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference (NSRC) in Palo Alto, California.  The purpose of the conference was to kickstart the imaginations of scientists who may utilize suborbital platforms for research.  Whereas tourism has driven much of the initial investment in the burgeoning new paradigm for space access, it is the research market that stands poised to provide the long-standi...

Beer is among humanity's earliest of inventions.  Predating writing, the fermented beverage traces its roots back to the dawn of agriculture more than 10,000 years ago.  Throughout human history, no matter where people go they bring beer with them.  Thus, it is only a matter of time until beer becomes a fixture of life in space.  When that day comes, we know we'll be in space to stay. No research has been done on the effects of alcohol on people in a microgravity environment.  For example, no one knows how alcohol absorption and metabolism differ in space compared with Earth.  Well, that's about to change.  I am proud to announce that the 4-Pines Brewing Company and Saber Astronautics Australia (through a joint venture called Vostok Pty Ltd ) have hired Astronauts4Hire (A4H) to test the first beer meant for consumption in space.  It is intended to meet anticipated demand from the upcoming space tourism market. Vostok Space Beer. Image Cre...

Last week, I had the pleasure of being the featured guest on the Talking Space podcast.   @TalkingSpace is a project of the Space Tweeps Society . The panelists interviewing me included Mark Ratterman , Sawyer Rosenstein , and Gina Herlihy .  We talked about my job at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, the astronaut selection process, my FMARS and MDRS missions, and Mars exploration in general.  Episode 212 is now online, and you can listen to it below: Podcast Powered By Podbean You can listen to my previous two Space Show interviews here and here .

The past day and a half has passed in a blur of activity responding to the Chile earthquake and Pacific tsunami . I was awake for 40 hours working almost nonstop at the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center (PTWC) and only took a small break for about two hours on Saturday afternoon. The total elapsed time from our first to last tsunami bulletins was 27 hours - a record long event for us. It may have been exhausting, but it was rewarding work knowing that something I was doing was making a difference. This was, after all, the first Pacific-wide tsunami warning since 1964!  Below is a photo of one of our displays in the operations center showing estimated tsunami travel time contours just before the tsunami was due to strike Japan:

I've had a busy AGU Meeting . The week has passed as a blur of meandering through the maze of posters, dropping into and out of oral presentation sessions, and plenty of bumping into people whom I've known over the years. In this post I'll highlight some of the things I found interesting. Day 1    |  Day 2    |  Day 3    |  Day 4  |  Day 5 Day 1: Monday, December 14 As I reported last time , I presented a poster about FMARS on Monday. I'm happy to report that it went very well, and I struck up some good conversations with people about the analog Mars research project.  The question I got asked the most was how we tracked traffic on our website or followers in social media.  My answer was that we didn't but will next time.  My poster was next to one from the Exploratorium on their Ice Stories project, which I have been following with great interest for the past year. I spent the afternoon cruising poster...

I will be Dr. David Livingston's guest on this Sunday's episode of The Space Show from 9:00am-10:30am Hawaii time (12:00pm Pacific, 1:00pm Mountain, 2:00pm Central, 3:00pm Eastern, ...). Our main topic of discussion will be the FMARS 2009 expedition . Listeners can talk to me or the host during the program by calling toll free 1-866-687-7223, sending email to drspace@thespaceshow.com (or dmlivings@yahoo.com, thespaceshow@gmail.com), or chatting on AIM/ICQ/CompuServe Chat using the screen name "spaceshowchat". You can listen to the show live via its website or RSS feed/podcast , which is also available in iTunes. If you can't catch the show live, you can always listen to the archived mp3 version later or click below to listen to it from the convenience of this blog (after September 6). More information on my appearance is available on The Space Show website . Podcast Powered By Podbean

I will be Dr. David Livingston's guest on today's The Space Show from 8:30am-10:30am Hawaii time (10:30am Pacific, 11:30am Mountain, 12:30pm Central, 1:30pm Eastern, ...). Our main topic of discussion will be my analysis of UND compared to ISU . Listeners can talk to me or the host during the program by calling toll free 1-866-687-7223, sending email to drspace@thespaceshow.com (or dmlivings@yahoo.com, thespaceshow@gmail.com), or chatting on AIM/ICQ/CompuServe Chat using the screen name "spaceshowchat". You can listen to the show live via its website or RSS feed/podcast , which is also available in iTunes. If you can't catch the show live, you can always listen to the archived mp3 version later or click below to listen to it now. More information on my appearance is available on The Space Show website . Podcast Powered By Podbean