By Ron Faith
Congratulations to all the recent college graduates! As we attend graduation ceremonies this spring, it reminds us of the challenges facing the space industry when it comes to talent acquisition.
The space industry has evolved rapidly over the past 10 years in terms of growth, capabilities, and talent base. The rise of SpaceX and the shift of NASA and the DoD to a more commercially friendly approach have contributed to faster growth and change. This month we’ll look at what’s needed in the industry and how new talent can help fulfil those needs.
During the first space race (~1961-1969) the industry was mostly government-led, was smaller and less geographically dispersed, and the talent base was more homogenous in terms of demographics and academic discipline. The space race focused on launch and landing on the moon, which demanded mathematicians, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, and aerospace engineers. While the space industry today not only includes a focus on getting people to the moon and back, it includes much, much more. This time we aim to settle the moon, it’s orbit, Earth orbit, and even Mars. There is also a strong focus on Earth monitoring for things like climate change, monitoring activity on Earth, and power generation. Many people in the space industry today talk about what the “killer app” will be for space. “Killer app” means an application with such great demand that it pulls through the platform it runs on such as personal computers or smartphones. The question is, what is the next one for space and what will it look like? Depending on the nature of the killer app or apps for space, it will determine what skills sets are needed to deliver it.
Having diverse viewpoints from people with all kinds of backgrounds will allow for more creative solutions to problems than we’ve been able to achieve in the past. Traditional space industry academic majors such as aeronautical, astronautical, electrical, and chemical engineering will still be required. In addition, there is a need for increasingly important majors such as computer science (AI/ML), business and mathematics. Those majors will become increasingly important as we try to make sense of the ever-increasing amount of data we are collecting about the space environment, the Earth, and other planetary bodies. This stems from higher compute capacity with better sensors on board the current generation of satellites. In the battle for talent, this trend pits the space industry against traditional Silicon Valley high tech firms especially as software continues to increase in importance.
During the first space race, only a handful of countries participated, with the competition centered around two nations – the United States and the Soviet Union. Today, with the falling cost of access and utilization of space, countries that previously couldn’t access space are standing up their own space programs and companies are starting up in those countries to support those space programs. Commercial companies are leading the way in many new ways with advanced technologies. With that comes an increasing need for people who have multilingual and multicultural capabilities. With all of the data being generated, cybersecurity issues have become front and center. With many countries looking to gain advantages in space, being able to protect your spacecraft and data is important, with networking and security skills playing a leading role among space talent. With commercial space driving a lot of growth, space companies are looking beyond STEM hires into fields such as business, marketing, and legal.
With the success of SpaceX and other new space companies, young people have brought new perspectives to the challenges of space exploration. It’s incumbent on space companies to bring in and value that perspective and not just source talent from traditional aerospace companies. Recruiters need to look beyond the traditional engineering schools that have fed traditional aerospace companies. New talent can be found in a wide array of colleges and universities, including trade schools. It is also the case that space companies should be looking to hire young people from other industries such as high tech and consulting who possess needed skill sets.
In the near future, we expect to see a more diverse, vibrant, and smart talent base enter the space industry and lead us through this period of rapid growth and change towards our destiny amongst the stars.