From Apollo to SpaceShipOne and Beyond
By: Federal Aviation Administration
Tags: NASA, Space, News, STEM, Spacex

Ken Davidian is the director of research for the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation in Washington, DC, as well as the program manager for the FAA Center of Excellence (COE) for Commercial Space Transportation. He has accumulated wide and in-depth experience in the space industry via academia, the private sector, advisory committees, the federal government, and the peer-reviewed journal, New Space, where he serves as editor-in-chief. He recently received the prestigious Distinguished Service Award from the International Astronautical Federation (IAF), which rewards volunteers for their contributions to the progress of astronautics and the federation.

When and how did you get interested in space?

I became interested in space when growing up during the Apollo program. On July 20, 1969, my family watched when Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon. Over and over, my brother and I watched a Super 8 movie of the Apollo 11 mission. During my third year of college, I realized I was interested in “things that fly,” but wasn’t aware of my love of space until I got my first job at the NASA Lewis (now Glenn) Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

Davidian (right) receives on Acquisition and Financial Assistance Award for Excellence from Willie Smith (left), Department of Transportation’s Office of the Senior Procurement Executive.

How did you end up working for the FAA?

When I came to the FAA, I had been working at NASA Headquarters, encouraging NASA’s engagement with the new, small space companies, both domestically and internationally. At the time, the FAA offered greater opportunities to work on an international level.

You’ve worked with private industry, academia, advocacy groups, and now the FAA. How does working with the federal government stack up with your experiences in those other sectors of the space industry?

First of all, let me point out all companies in the private sector, like all agencies within the federal government, are not created equal. In the government space sector, the internal workings of the FAA, NASA, and the DOD are very different. Companies take on the personality of their founders, giving each a distinct culture, rhythm, and feel. Working with a great company is just as satisfying as working for a great government agency.

For me, working for the government or a non-profit academic organization provides a greater sense of public service than working for most private companies. On the other hand, working for the federal government has its share of frustrations that may not be present in the private sector. The bottom line is that working in any of the three sectors is not entirely “black or white,” and involves some level of “living in the grey.” No sector — private, non-profit, or government — is going to be perfect.

Davidian with principal investigators of the COE CST Annual Technical Meeting in 2017 during a tour of the Virgin Galactic facilities at the New Mexico Spaceport America.

You’ve gained wide experience and recognition for your work on behalf of commercial space transportation, the most recent being the IAF Award. Which of your accomplishments do you find most meaningful, both personally and professionally?

I’ve enjoyed introducing all space professionals to advanced academic concepts that can appeal to everybody, including those with an entrepreneurial mindset, as well as to those who don’t dream of starting their own business. Commercial space is a very popular topic in all segments of the international space community, and most of us have technical backgrounds.

I’ve been involved with the IAF as chair of the Entrepreneurship and Investment Committee (EIC) since 2011 and am responsible for multiple technical paper sessions at the annual International Astronautical Congress. I’ve also given lectures and participated in workshops for the annual Space Generation Congress (SGC) most years, too. We’ve used those forums to target both the practitioner and academic communities with content that speaks directly to each group.

Research shows management practitioners tend to overlook — or worse yet, knowingly ignore — relevant research about business, and the intent of the EIC and SGC programming is to bridge that scholar-practitioner gap. That’s a long-winded way of saying my most meaningful accomplishment to date is helping to bridge that gap by introducing relevant academic business research to space industry practitioners.

How have your efforts in trying to recruit as many people and companies as possible into the industry evolved over time?

I would say when I was at NASA, I was absolutely a cheerleader, and that’s the way I started out when I came to the FAA in 2008. Since then, however, and especially since 2018, I’m more interested in discussing the complexities of FAA Commercial Space’s “encourage, facilitate, and promote” mission as it applies to the appropriate government role in emerging space industry segments. For example, I’ve already written two papers just trying to define a simple word like “commercial” and there are plenty more articles to write on that subject alone. My focus today isn’t on the number of companies brought into the industry but trying to distinguish if those that do enter really are “commercial.”

What, if any, outreach have you made to young people or students?

My entire job as a director of research has been focused on young people and students. Studies that attempt to qualify and quantify the benefits of research consistently report the primary benefit of research is not necessarily the new knowledge, but the development of the student researchers into well-educated members of society who possess strong analytic and problem-solving skills.

Every research grant awarded to the Commercial Space COE universities, whether to help us do our job better or to help space industry survival, was a form of outreach to young people and students.

Additionally, we conducted a series of workshops entitled “Emerging Space Industry Leaders” through the Commercial Space COE and the SGC, focusing on college students and younger professionals. Combining my personal and professional space industry activities, we are including professors and students around the world in our industry emergence research.

Where do you see the commercial space industry in 10 years?

Good question! In the next 10 years, I think we will finally see some of the major industry events for suborbital tourism we’ve been waiting for since Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipOne won the X PRIZE in 2004.

We will see some major advances in orbital transportation, primarily attributable to SpaceX’s willingness to do things the incumbent industry members don’t dare, similar to what Tesla is doing to the automobile industry. Other than that, the status is quo. Basically, what we think might occur in a couple of years takes a couple of decades. Generally speaking, I think we need to recalibrate our expectations by an order of magnitude.

Where will you be then and what will you be doing? Or put another way, what future aspirations do you have?

In 10 years, I’ll be over 70 years old. I hope not to be working for the FAA by then J. I hope to have flown in space by then. I hope to continue researching, thinking, publishing, debating, rethinking, and lecturing 10 years from now.