München

It's been a month and a half since I moved from London to Munich on New Years Day. Time has flown past and I'm already finding myself giving people (wrong) directions around town! 

Occasionally, I look back to my first few days at work when everything that seems so clear to me now was all new information and realise how much I've already learnt in this short time. The European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a wonderful place to grow professionally and I can only imagine the perspective I'll have on my last day — leaving as a better writer than before. 

Sitting at the forefront of cutting-edge astronomical research of the Southern skies— incredible new discoveries, exciting projects and magical images of the Universe are ESO's forté. One such project that I'm working on is the ESO Ultra HD Expedition, which is the journey of four world renowned astrophotographers to Chile in order to capture the magnificent ESO sites in all their grandeur . A week or so ago, Christoph Malin, one of the talented ESO Photo Ambassadors embarking upon the trip paid a visit to the office where he took some photos of us hard at work :) 

Living in a sleepy village outside Munich city centre means that I am always a tourist whenever I visit town. The weather has been unusually warm, but I'm not complaining!

I thought I'd share these snippets of my daily life as a short glimpse into working and living in Munich :)

-Nikita

Lost In Space

January has been a flurry of snow, early nights, getting lost, astronomy, writing and most of all learning.

 From learning how to write succinct yet compelling European Southern Observatory (ESO) press releases to navigating the U-Bahn, using Euros and recalling my GCSE German lessons— I'm getting more settled into life in Munich and will be posting more regularly in February. For now, here's a photo of what is getting me through these icy winter months:

 Hi, my name is Nikita and I'm a Nutella-holic.

-Nikita

Graduation

Credit: David Gaston Sulitzer

My time as an International Space University (ISU) student has now drawn to a close! Last week, around 50 students from the MSc13 class returned from their internships across the globe to quaint old Strasbourg town. Located on the border to Germany, the French city has been my home for the year (see my blog post here). I've made lifelong friends, memories and learnt more about who and what I want to be in the years to come. 

I began as an ISU Space Studies Program (SSP) student back in the summer of 2012. You might remember it from my 'This one time at space camp' blog post found here. The program is held in a different place every year and I was fortunate to attend the 25th (and best!) one of all in Florida. Witnessing 2 rocket launches and Space Shuttles Endeavor and Atlantis made it an incredible taster of what ISU has to offer. And I was not dissapointed with the Masters program. From trips to Russia, Toulouse, Switzerland, Germany and finally my internship in San Francisco at NASA Ames Research Center this summer, I've had the time of my life. After presenting my project 'The New Media Innovation Team at NASA Ames Research Center' to faculty, I graduated the following week with a Masters in Space Studies! I  am now one of the 3500 ISU alumni scattered across the planet.

I hope you've enjoyed following my ISU journey as much as I have loved writing and sharing it with you. I will no doubt continue with space and science posts and definitely, more space adventures to come! 

-Nikita

p.s If you have an interest in space and would like to learn about how you can make a difference to help humanity become a spacefaring species, then I'd recommend ISU for you, regardless of your academic background. Find out more on the programs ISU has to offer here and I promise, you'll join a space family like no other. 

Making Space Accessible: NanoSatisfi

They say that when you love your job, you never work a day in your life. That's exactly what the guys at revolutionary space company, NanoSatisfi strongly believe in. Nestled in the heart of San Francisco, three International Space University graduates (like myself) work towards making space more affordable and accessible for everybody. Together, Peter Platzer, Jeroen Cappaert and Joel Spark juggled ISU exams, lectures, team projects and summer internships with creating a business plan and running a Kickstarter campaign. This all took place in 2012 and now, a year later the company has achieved great success with their main products, miniature cubic satellite ArduSat and ArduSat Academy. I visited NanoSatisfi HQ to learn more from the guys about their journey and what they think is the key to unlocking both happiness and success.

Based out of a collective workspace provided by tech incubator Lemnos Labs, CEO Peter Platzer treated my friends and I with a breakfast array of coffee, pastries and orange juice, before taking a seat on the office floor (there were 12 of us!) and answering our questions with Jeroen and Joel. We were keen to find out how exactly they succeeded at both university and starting a company and they provided us with a great deal of advice towards achieving our dreams, no matter what. Using the example of the 4 minute mile, Peter described how something can only be achieved when you believe it can be. Simply because it is thought to be impossible, does not make it so. The fact that this is merely a state of mind signifies a gap in the market and consequently an opportunity for you to change this thought process.

NanoSatisfi CEO, Peter Platzer holding a prototype of the ArduSat payload package (Source: Space Fellowship)

 

NanoSatisfi co-founders, Jeroen Cappaert and Joel Spark

Beginning his career as a high-energy physicist at CERN, Peter completed an MBA at Harvard before heading to Wall Street. However space exploration called. I asked Peter what NanoSatisfi meant to him personally & professionally: 

" NanoSatisfi is the culmination of my personal mission statement to have an positive impact on the world, and professionally it is a happy return to my early career aspirations as a physicist and to my passion for space exploration.  These were put on hold for 15 years while I worked in business and waited for a time when the commercialization of space would make it possible to do something impactful without relying on the whims of government budgets.  NanoSatisfi has allowed me to do that, and I am lucky that both personally and professionally I have found a way to be doing something that I love and exactly what I am meant to be doing at this point in my career." - Peter Platzer, CEO NanoSatisfi

Together with aerospace engineer Joel and mechanical engineer Jeroen, the team are driven to  providing regular people with affordable, convenient and on-demand access to space. Their two main products include ArduSat, which allows the public to buy time to run their own experiments, games or applications on board the satellite for as low as $250 a week. Their ArduSat Academy offers training on program design and building, bringing the magic of space science closer to people like you and me. 

ArduSat illustration (Source: Science Business)

Meeting people that exactly a year ago were in my position as an ISU Masters student on their summer internship gave me a strong sense of motivation to achieve similar success. I left NanoSatisfi feeling as though I can and will accomplish anything that I put my mind to. And it really is as simple as that. 

Follow @NanoSatisfi for fun space facts, updates and all-round entertaining140 retweet-worthy characters

- Nikita

Becoming a NASA Intern

For the past 3 weeks I've been interning at NASA Ames Research Center in the Silicon Valley, San Francisco. Renowned for its innovative approach, Ames is the perfect place for me to explore where I want my career to take me and to meet extra-ordinary people that can help me to identify this. 

Serving as the newest member of the NASA New Media Innovation Team (NMIT) I've been lucky enough to have the most interesting, creative and intelligent mentor, Dr. Yvonne Clearwater. With over 40 years of work at Ames, Yvonne joined Ames as a member of the International Space Station (ISS) design team and was the Principle Investigator on early ISS designs. As well as this, she developed the official NASA App, 'NASA on the (Flickr) Commons and the inspirational website NASA ArtSpace (found here: http://www.nasa.gov/connect/artspace/)

Together, we are working to increase public awareness and involvement in the creative cultural convergence of art, science and technology as it serves to inspire space exploration. We have been developing innovative projects to increase public communication and connection with NASA. In particular, utilising the powerful tool of new media platforms to increase public engagement with NASA Ames.

I'll be working here for 3 months and already have had the opportunity to go to a number of events at exciting places such as the SETI Institute: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, Singularity University as well as meeting the Director of Ames Pete Worden and the NASA Administrator Charles Bolden!

Lunchtime conversations between the synthetic biologist to the neighbouring astrophysicist and their quantum computing friend have become an everyday occurrence for my fellow interns and I, and it's something I don't think I'll ever get used to hearing. It's s a daily reminder of the unique environment I'm in and I feel very fortunate to be in the midst of the ground-breaking research and technological advancement that is and will help us explore the Universe as well as sustain life as we know it on Earth.

-Nikita