Week 4 was quite varied. We visited Strasbourg’s Observatory, worked on Team Project Oceans, a lecture in Satellite Business consulting and a legal workshop I enjoyed a lot. I also met with Dr. Buckley to talk about my internship. Even though there are opportunities in several parts of the world, SES still is my number one choice. I hope this year they re-open their Associate Program. Looks like a very interesting position.
Although I had been researching for a week the impact of fisheries in the world’s oceans, I still had to spend most of my Sunday perfecting the two-page report we have to present tomorrow. Which is good since it helped me to shape the report and gave me time to hear interviews to specialists in the field. Some of the information I gathered:
– Small, family-owned fisheries account for 50+ % of the fishing of the world and employ 99% of the fishermen (Monterey Bay Aquarium report)
– Since the nice-looking fish are almost depleted, commercial fisheries are capturing uglier fish, selling them with a different name. E.g. The new Chilean sea bass was the Patagonian tooth fish , the new Anglerfish was the monkfish (interview to Professor Daniel Pauly).
– Fish consumption worldwide is growing year by year, and as the purchasing power of developing countries increases, they will want more fish:
World capture and aquaculture production. Source: FAO
As a consequence, the world is losing USD 50 billion per year because of overfishing, almost 30% of the fisheries have collapsed and, according to FAO, the next target of illegal fisheries is the Antarctic krill. Not a very wise move.
But not everything is gloomy in the horizon. There is still hope according to these scientists, thanks to responsible fisheries and decision-makers in governments (a clear example of this is the Peruvian fishing industry).
Now, the million dollar question is, how can Space Technologies help?
This is going to be a really interesting Team Project.
The third week has passed by and I still feel the effects of jet lag. Although my mind is more focused, my body craves for at least 10 hours of sleep per day. Kind of hard with the amount of work we are dealing with.
This week was business week: financial analysis, cash flows, RFP (Request for Proposal) principles and a workshop on how to write a Business Plan. The idea behind all this training was to prepare us for Assignment 2-2: how to write a proposal for a fictitious International Space Agency’s Call for Proposal.
Between Thursday and Friday we wrote a 15 page document for a lunar orbiter capable of firing a set of penetrators to the moon’s poles. I learned a lot during this assignment, specially on ESA’s approach to Risk Management.
We also managed (how I don’t know) to work on Team Project Oceans. I chose fisheries, so I spent the whole weekend doing research on this topic. The social highlight of the week? A beer@Dubliner’s….to discuss TP Oceans 😛
I never thought I would say this but jet lag is killing me. I’ve changed two major time zones (Peru – Korea – France) in 15 days and I can really feel how unfocused my mind is. I hope that next week I’ll be better.
Anyway, each day is a new experience for me since I’ve never lived alone before, so maintaining an apartment has become quite a challenge. I think I will buy a robot from iRobot to clean the house. I love cooking, I hate cleaning.
Last week we started working on Assignment 2-1: How to design a spacecraft that could go to the moon and deliver a set of penetrators. These penetrators would penetrate (sorry for the redundancy) the lunar soil in pre-chosen sites and gather data for scientific research.
After a week of very hard work (after all, we also had lectures and the Team Project) we made the presentations to the faculty. I think that our group did a very good job but other teams did better (for example, SLAM).
SLAM’s team presentation on Assignment 2-1. Source: Manuel Antonio Cuba.
Fortunately my thesis from my MSc. in Industrial Engineering is on the Space Launch Services industry; that helped me a lot to evaluate the rocket and upper stage required for the mission. Unfortunately I forgot to mention how we would deal with ITAR since our upper stage was manufactured by ATK and our fictitious company was not an American corporation. This issue was raised by Professor Tolyarenko during the Q&A.
Regarding the lectures some of them were repetitions from SSP09 so there wasn’t much of new stuff. However I really enjoyed the lecture on Risk Management. After the lecture we had an exercise that followed, in a very simple way, the different processes involved in Risk Management. This information would have been very handy when I was Account Delivery Manager/Project Manager at HP.
This week has been crazy. I arrived from Korea on Sunday, had dinner with a family friend of mine at Paris, took the TGV to Strasbourg on Monday morning , checked in at the hotel, took the tram to ISU and registered.
Although there were no classes on Tuesday, we had introductory sessions with the faculty & the administrative staff. After that I started to look for an apartment which was quite urgent since staying at a hotel was destroying my budget (I didn’t find a place at the local hostel). Alas, I arrived too late. Almost all apartments were taken. Lucky for me I had been in contact with a Teaching Associate who had left her place a couple of weeks before.
The impressive Strasbourg’s cathedral. Source: Manuel Antonio Cuba.
It is a nice place two blocks away from Krimmerie station, which is perfect since it only takes me 15 minutes to go to ISU station at Campus d’Illkirch.
My recommendation for future students that come from a SSP: start looking for a place through www.appartager.com. You may find a cheap place to stay for a month until you find a better option. Unfortunately hostels are always full and they won’t let you stay for a long period of time, so don’t count on them.
Regarding classes, I really enjoyed the lectures on International Liability Regime and Space Law Liability with Dr. Philippe Achilleas. At the end of the week we had a workshop on Liability Law that helped us understand how complex Space Law is (and it was a lot of fun, at least for me).
We also had to choose our Team Project. For me it was pretty clear that I would go for Team Project Oceans. Analogs was too technical for my liking while Oceans will let me explore the sustainability of the seas for industrial activities. I hope I will be able to work on fisheries, a topic I enjoy a lot since Peru is one of the main exporters of fish meal in the world.
Brian Shiro, astronaut for hire, was interviewed by Dr. Livingston on his online comparison of ISU and UND studies. This podcast is a must for anyone considering space-studies. Before listening to the interview, I recommend reading Brian’s comparison first.
Sorry people for not being able to post things in the blog; there were some IT issues that, thankfully, have been resolved.
There has been a LOT going on:
-The first movie in which a Space Elevator will appear (and its a Peruvian movie!!!). It has already won a prize in Argentina and it is going after a prize in Europe.
-Another book from Daniel Titinger in which he is going to mention the Space Elevator
-The first hurdle for publishing my thesis has been overcome; two to go now.
-The UN OOSA invited me to Spain in order to give a talk about the SE and 3rd world nations. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend due to personal reasons.
-I have embarked in the quest of creating an economic analysis of the SE. Horrendously complex but it is time to do it.
-I am applying for a scholarship at the ISU for the SSP & MSM program.
-A local TV channel wants to go to Seattle to make a report about Liftport & the SE. Hopefully, they will be able to go when we are making our newest test.
Phew, I think that is it, for now. I will give further details in the following days.
Take care everyone.
*This entry was originally posted in Liftport’s blog.
Today I took a break at work to watch SpaceShipOne’s first flight to space. It was awesome, so awesome that I didn’t pay importance to its spinning (duly noted by my boss, who was also watching).
Luckily, everything went ok and Mike Melvill came back to good ol’ Earth.
…for Peru? Now more than ever I am quite pessimistic about it. Once again the country is going to hell. The Asian crisis has shaken our economy to the point of disaster, proving that even with all the structural changes in the economy, it is going to take more than 10 years to get out of this hole.
I can’t wait. Once and over again the leaders of this nation have proven how ineffective they are running a country and I can’t bet my personal and professional life to a bunch of ignorants. So, I suppose it is time to look for something outside Peru. And if I am going to live in another country, why not work in the space industry? That will give me the inspiration I need for such a hard endeavor.
Saturn V S-1C Stages in Michoud Assembly Facility. Source: NASA
Es poco lo que se sabe de la industria espacial en Latinoamérica. Lo común es asociarla con astronautas y el transbordador espacial. Pero poco se sabe de los miles de millones de dólares de riqueza que esta industria genera, los beneficios que brinda al ciudadano común y el potencial que tiene para ayudarnos a vivir en armonía con el planeta y darnos una vida mejor.
Es por eso que el objetivo de este blog es relatar mi experiencia como estudiante en la International Space University y difundir la industria espacial entre los estudiantes y profesionales de Latinoamérica.
Por ejemplo, como pueden ver en el siguiente cuadro, la industria de satélites comerciales es un rubro que viene creciendo año a año y cada vez requiere de más profesionales:
Fuente: Futron y Satellite Industry Association
Y de acuerdo a la Space Foundation, la industria espacial (incluyendo el sector público y privado) facturó USD 261.6 mil millones en 2009. Pero al momento de escribir me encontré en una disyuntiva: ¿debía escribir en inglés o en español? Me tomó varios días de reflexión y estas fueron mis conclusiones:
– El inglés es el idioma universal de la industria espacial;
– Gran parte de la información sobre la industria espacial se encuentra en inglés;
– No le haría un favor a los estudiantes de Latinoamérica si les doy todo en español;
– Consumiría una gran cantidad de mi tiempo hacer las traducciones. Prefiero invertir ese tiempo en la calidad del blog;
– Gran parte de las becas y auspicios requieren saber inglés.
En conclusión, haré el blog en inglés.
Entrar a la industria espacial es una carrera de largo aliento. A mí me tomó muchos años hacerlo y aún sigo aprendiendo. Pero como me dijo un empleado de NASA hace unas semanas: “no hay como levantarte todas las mañanas sabiendo que hoy vas a cambiar al mundo”.
* Esta entrada fue escrita el 23 de Agosto de 2009 en un bus rumbo a una cata de vinos con más de 40 personas, incluyendo al Director de NASA Ames, Simon ‘Pete’ Worden. Las cifras del Space Report fueron actualizadas en 2010.
