The Space Hour

As advancements are made in space, so to are they made in the nuclear armament fields. Maintaining global nuclear security you could say is one of the most important jobs for our international leaders, but with the two areas becoming more and more intertwined, it might help to have those in the nuclear security field learn more about space. That's what the Secure World Foundation is hoping to accomplish with it's new initiative. In partnership with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), it recently announced a two year effort hoping to explore the growing intersection of space and nuclear security in order to strengthen cross-sector understanding and enhance strategic stability. To find out more, I had the pleasure of talking to Victoria Samson, who is Chief Director of Space Security and Stability at the SWF.

https://www.swfound.org/space-nuclear-initiative

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Contained within the plans to slash government spending, NOAA, that is the National Oceanic and Administrative Administration's, particularly its Office of Space Commerce and its TraCCS system, is one of the targets. That's a problem for the many organizations in the commercial space industry who've come to rely on it. That's why a coalition of space industry associations have all come together to implore Congress to continue funding the program. One of those members, Audrey Schaffer, VP of Strategy and Policy at Slingshot Aerospace, told me more about this initiative.

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Space enthusiasts and hopefully listeners of this show know the term LEO, or low Earth orbit gets tossed around a lot, but what about VLEO, that's very low Earth orbit. Well you may begin hearing that phrase more and more. Orion Space Solutions announced the successful completion of a test readiness review (TRR) for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Ouija program VLEO mission. It's slated to launch this summer and could open up the potential for more activity in that space. For an explainer about this program and VLEO information overall, I talked with Chad Fish, President and CEO of Orion Space Solutions.

https://orion.arcfield.com/press-releases/orion-space-solutions-prepares-for-historical-vleo-darpa-ouija-program-mission-launch

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Budget cuts seem to be the name of the game for this Congress, and NASA and other U.S. space exploration plans. Though things remain in the air and there are some opponents to it, the 2026 budget proposal from the Trump administration calls for steeper cuts than many expected. For a breakdown of that proposal, I spoke with Maria Lily Shaw, Senior Consultant at Novaspace, a consulting firm that operates within the space sector. 

https://nova.space/in-the-loop/nasa-2026-budget-proposal-the-impact-on-the-prospects-for-space-exploration/

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Radiation hardening, is the process of making electrical components resistant to high levels of radiation. It's an important part of developing space equipment obviously. Doing it however requires the proper tools and facilities, and there's a new one out there. Auburn University's Applied Research Institute has recently been given a contract through the Missile Defense Agency to create a new "cutting-edge" rad hardening facility. To find out more I had the chance to speak with the executive director for the Auburn's Applied Research Institute, Jonathan Pettus.

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It seems like a strange thing to wonder, but I was curious of the role that science and research plays in military space operations, particularly for the U.S. Space Force. I found the perfect person to help with that question. Dr. Stacie Williams is Chief Science Officer, who was able to lay out to me the focus of her role and why STEM is still one of THE most important aspects of U.S. space dominance. 

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Starting today at an unlikely place, the U.S. Army. With the branch recently celebrating its 250th anniversary, it's also entering a new chapter, one that involves more space activity. In fact, it's creating a new military occupational specialty for enlisted personnel supporting Army space operations – the 40D, Space Operations Specialist. To find out more about it and other plans of actions the branch is looking towards, I spoke with Brig. Gen. Donald Brooks, who is Deputy Commanding General for Operations for Army Space and Missile Defense Command.

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Back in March, the ASPIRE ONE Lunar Record successfully landed on the moon. It was a part of NASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services within the Artemis program. The experiment involves putting a digital record of life here on Earth, on the moon. Think of it as a time capsule for anyone to possibly find in the future and see what life was like here during this time. A fascinating idea to say the least, that involved a lot of philosophical thinking during the creation process. To learn more about it, I got the chance to speak with Anamaria Berea, an associate professor at George Mason University.

https://www.gmu.edu/news/2025-03/mason-scientist-orchestrates-moon-based-message-bottle-future-generations

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There's almost too much data for humans to consider when making decisions now during space missions. Operators can become bogged down in analyzing all the avenues of information at their disposal. Enter artificial intelligence and machine learning. The application here could help make those decisions for them, especially as missions take place further and further away from the Earth itself. For more on this area of interest, I had the chance to speak with Victoria Da-Poian, a Lead Data Scientist at NASA contractor Tyto Athene.

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