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If SpaceX's destination the International Space Station in hohum low-Earth orbit is certain to be uninspiring to a new generation of would-berocketeers, someone forgot to tell many of thoserocketeers-in-training. The prospect of working for private companies launching cargo tothe space station and, eventually, humans into space has emerged asan alluring option for a new generation of aerospace-engineeringstudents, some educators say. The evidence is anecdotal; no formal surveys have appeared tovalidate the trends these educators say they see. And while graduates with advanced degrees are pepperinglong-established giants such as Boeing or Lockheed Martin, as wellas NASA, with resumes, so-called New Space firms that have emergedduring the past 10 to 20 years SpaceX, among them hold aspecial attraction. It used to be that the hottest job you could get was at NASA, says Thomas Zurbuchen, a professor of space science and aerospaceengineering at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor andassociate dean for entrepreneurship. Ten years ago, if someonegot a [Joint Propulsion Laboratory] job, they never rejected it, even if the student had received amore-lucrative offer from one of the aerospace giants. Now, he says, when students with newly minted graduate degreesconsider offers from NASA and private industry, New Space winshands down, even though the salaries tend to be lower that thosethe big corporations or NASA pay. Elsewhere, students graduating with advanced aerospace engineeringdegrees may spread themselves a bit more evenly. In an economystill struggling to rise from the so-called Great Recession,getting a foothold in one's chosen field, even if the employer isnot a first choice, beats the alternative. Still, NASA's new direction contracting with commercial launchproviders to carry cargo and people to destinations in low-Earthorbit while focusing on human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit is putting extra spring in students' steps. What we're looking at here is not Apollo 2.0, it's a whole newfuture in spaceflight, says Robert Braun, professor of spacetechnology at Georgia Tech and former chief technologist at NASA. And that is something that I can tell you reverberates with a lotof energy and excitement on college campuses across the country. Part of the interest may lie in the novelty the new companiesrepresent, some specialists say. But a big part of it surely liesin the big ideas these companies are pursuing. Even before its Dragon capsule launched on a Falcon 9 rocket to thespace station, Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX)announced a joint marketing deal with Bigelow Aerospace in whichSpaceX would launch people and payloads to Bigelow's inflatablehabitats on orbit, a type of space module originally developed atNASA. Bigelow has two small-scale prototypes circling Earth now.The market the two companies see is international providingaccess to space for countries outside the usual cast of spacefaringnations. Meanwhile, in December, entrepreneur Paul Allen announced theformation of a new company, Stratolaunch Systems. It teams Allenwith SpaceX, Scaled Composites, founded by aircraft designer BurtRutan, and another company, Dynetics, to build an air-launchedrocket system. A multistage rocket would be released at highaltitude from an enormous jet with six engines used on Boeing 747s.The rocket would carry cargo and people to orbit. These big ideas highlight a point that emerges from conversationswith educators and one-time students now hard at work designing andbuilding hardware. Although the Apollo program that carried men tothe moon in the late 1960s and 1970s continues to serve as a kindof eternal torch of inspiration for some, the generation at handappears to draw much of its inspiration from the space program athand. Pick a point in time, and they find something that inspires them. For his part, Dr. Braun was four years old when Neil Armstrongstepped out of the lunar excursion module and into history as thefirst human to set foot on the moon. Braun says he has norecollection of the event, although his parents told him he sat infront of the TV watching it with them at the time. His passion forspace blossomed with the Viking missions to Mars in the mid-1970s,he says. I am an expert from paperpackagingboxes.com, while we provides the quality product, such as Professional Photo Book Printing , Packaging Jewellery Boxes Manufacturer, Paper Packaging Boxes,and more.
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