Posts Tagged ‘Masten Space Systems’

Joining Masten Space Systems

December 7th, 2009

Today is my first day on the job at Masten Space Systems. I am joining them as their first full-time business development / sales monkey, and I couldn’t be more excited. Why, you ask? But simply, it’s the industry I can get excited about working in. And in that industry, few companies 1) have the momentum from recent flight success going for them that Masten currently has, and 2) will give a 23 year old who’s never done sales before a shot at building revenue.

GTRI was awesome – I worked there for about a year and a half – if you count the year I spent as a co-op there. The people there are awesome and you couldn’t ask for better co-workers. I was involved in some great high level projects focused on improving business development coordination for the 1400+ employees, and I enjoyed what I got to do.

But it’s not space. Friggin’ space. Ya know, that place that we happen to exist in. But there’s so much more out there than this little piddly tiny planet we live on. There’s absolutely unimaginably immense voids of space, giant stars, supermassive black holes, planets, and so much more out there. The planet we know and the sun we revolve around don’t matter on the scale of the 100-400 BILLION stars in our galaxy alone. And just when you think you’ve grasped that, check out the Hubble Ultra Deep Field – which is equal to 1/13,000,000 of the sky. Look at that – better yet – look at this 3D illustration of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. This place is unfathomable.

We’re a long way away from Star Trek, but small companies like Masten are making space more accessible to the normal person (or normal researcher) than ever before. And I’m very fortunate and extremely excited to be a tiny part of that.  Extremely excited. Get me started on the topic – I dare you.

I’m going to love this job.

Chasing The Dream…

November 1st, 2009

On June 20, 2008 I was reading on the Google Lunar X Prize. I thought it was pretty sweet (it’s a contest where the first privately funded team to get a robot to the moon and completes a couple simple tasks wins $30M), so I blogged about it (read it here). I included the following paragraph:

If I had the choice of any job in the world – it’d be lending my skills towards a team doing something nobody had done before.  Private space exploration would be the most exhilirating project ever.

This is officially my application – if anyone out there needs someone who knows IT, knows marketing, and loves a challenge, call me.  If I could do anything, being a part of a team doing this would be amazing.

Here we are in November 2009 (hard to believe the time has passed) and a company I interned with in Spring 2009 and have been working with on a pro bono basis doing whatever they need doing from a marketing and business development standpoint just completed both levels of the Lunar Lander Challenge X Prize.

What’s next? Who knows – but being (even a miniscule) part of a team that has flown some really freaking awesome rockets has been an incredible part of my life for the last 10 months. There’s more to come from Masten and I’m really enjoying being involved. They had a couple unsuccessful attempts this week that Michael Mealling (Masten’s VP of Business Development) and I watched live and it built a level of suspense that was finally released when they completed the challenge with two minutes to spare on Friday afternoon.

Is there something you really wish you could be doing? If so, why aren’t you going out and doing it? If there’s something you really want to do and I can help in any way, let me know how I can help. Being a part of something you _care_ about is, to me, absolutely crucial in life. Don’t sit there and put up with something you’re not excited by when there’s something else you really want to be doing. Go get involved. Chase your dream.

A Masten Vacation

May 11th, 2009

For the next two weeks, I’ll be in Mojave, California working with Masten Space Systems on anything they need help with. I interned with Masten Space Systems in the spring of 2009 and helped Michael Mealling with some business development stuff. Now that I’ve graduated, I’m going to keep working with them – and a two week “rocket vacation” is just what the doctor ordered.

Masten has a nice sized shop out here in Mojave. It includes desk space, a garage for the truck, another garage for the rocket vehicle, parts from all sorts of rockets and engines, and anything else they need. They also have a test site out in what is labeled A52 – or Area 52. That contains two pads, a test stand and a thick bunker wall protecting a viewing hut (Mom, don’t worry, nothing could get through said wall, except the snake that may or may not live under the wall). Mojave is the place to come for a lot of companies doing a lot of cool stuff – other companies based here include Scaled Composites and XCOR (and a whole bunch of other companies I can’t remember right now).

The guys just flew under a tether for the first time on Friday – and it went well. There are a few adjustments to make before we fly again, so I think those get kicked off today. I’m going to work on some wireless equipment that I’m familiar with from my Wandering WiFi days – we’re using that for communication out in the bunker… And I’m sure I’ll get stuck on a few more projects as the week goes on.

I’ll try and blog a few times about my experience out here in Mojave – partially because I’m sure it’ll be pretty fun – and partially because I’m awake WAY before anybody else as I’m on EDT.

Take care,

Colin