Main Engine Cut Off

Last week, I posted some thoughts about the cognitive dissonance of SpaceX’s Demo-2 mission and its timing alongside massive, nationwide (and now worldwide) demonstrations speaking out against racism and in support of police and criminal justice reform.

There has been a ton of different voices speaking out and talking about things that we need to do to make the world a better place. Among them was an excellent post by President Obama talking about how local and state-level changes should not be overlooked, and in many cases, is the number one priority for making progress. I believe that’s true, and have seen it happen nearby—our neighbors across the river in Camden, NJ have implemented several changes since 2014 and have made real progress.

I’ve been talking with my friend and podcast partner Jake Robins, of WeMartians and Off-Nominal, about things we can do to help. One thing that kept leaping forward in my mind is that the concept of “local” with an online community like ours—spanning cities, states, countries, and continents—means something entirely different. Local is not just geography anymore, it’s who you work with, who you interact with online, and the industry that brings us all together.

The space industry in particular has a lot of work to do, as Jake talks about in his post today. And as I said in my blog post last week, representation matters and can have a huge impact on our future.

In that spirit, we’ve put together a fundraiser with the help of our Off-Nominal Discord community to benefit two fantastic organizations that are helping make our space industry a better place: Black Girls Code and the Banneker Institute at Harvard.

Jake and I talked about this fundraiser and discussed our thoughts on a short, special episode of Off-Nominal today, so give it a listen or head over to donate.offnominal.space to read a bit more from us.

We’ll both be matching donations made to both organizations now through July 10, up to this entire month’s Patreon revenue. Email your receipt to donate@offnominal.space so we can match it, and help us make a difference in the space industry, together.