Working With Others

In the last year I've gone from working in almost total isolation to working, sometimes several nights per week, with a team of volunteers, now all under the umbrella organization Pacific Spaceflight. In the photo, (L) Kit MacAllister and Ben Wilson testing an new pulse-meter that Kit is building into the Arduino microcontroller that will monitor several biological properties inside the pressure garment.

I am awfully lucky to have a dedicated group aboard, meeting frequently and building subsystems of the pressure suit simultaneously.

I am learning how to work with a group of people, rather than on my own, and this demands a whole new way of communicating and coordinating. For years, I specifically sought out solo challenges, particularly in the Arctic in Winter, but for the moment, that's all over, and I am learning to share my dreams and efforts with others.

Just before I joined Copenhagen Suborbitals, science writer Peter Andrey Smith wrote a short profile on me, now available here. I had no idea, at the time, that I would soon join an actual manned space programme.