Jonathan McDowell is the go-to expert for all spaceflight. Thousands of subscribers read his monthly Space Reportand we’ve seen him explain unexpected events on orbit on cable news and other media platforms.
But it was always his side gig. For 37 years, Dr. McDowell was an X-ray astronomy expert at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Earlier this year, he announced that he would retire from the role and also leave the US for the UK.
The decision, he said, was complicated by policy changes that have been the first since President Trump took office due to continued pressure on the federal science budget.
“It doesn’t seem like there’s any more opportunity to be an effective scientist and an effective person building the scientific community,” Dr. McDowell said. “I’m just proud to be as American as I used to be.”
Born in the US and the UK to gain dual citizenship, Dr. McDowell joined the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in 1988 and leads the Science Data Systems Group at NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory, the 26th space telescope.
In the next phase of his career, Dr. McDowell said he wanted to spend more time. Document what’s going on in space.
He’s preparing to move abroad, and with the accent he jokes, he’s clearly becoming British. This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What is your interest in space?
There were really two routes. The satellites and space side really came from the Apollo program. I remember walking home from a school in the northern UK. I saw the moon in the sky and said, “Next week there will be humans there for the first time. They will be in another world.” It blew my 9-year-old mind.
The astronomical side was wondering what the real story was about where we came from and how the universe turned out to be. It pushed me towards an interest in cosmology at a very early age. My dad was a physicist and my babysitter was everything. I didn’t realize there were other options.
Another major influence was “Doctor Who.” I started watching it at the age of three. It infuses me with the wonders about the universe and the idea that one crazy person can help how humanity interacts with it.
All of them came together and I was just fascinated by what was there.
The UK school system specializes early. I’ve been doing orbital calculations since I was 14, and since I learned Russian, I was able to read what the Soyuz astronauts were doing. I have completed my PhD. At Cambridge University, I was able to spend time with people like current astronomer royals Stephen Hawking and Martin Reese. It wouldn’t have been a better training.
On the side, I used my technical skills to get deeper into spaceflight. At the time, the media didn’t actually cover the space, so I forced my own research.
Did that lead to the creation of Jonathan’s Space Report in 1989?
I just moved to Smithsonian Astrophysical ObservatoryIt was once the center of space information for the public in the 1950s. The civil servants began attacking me with questions they still get from the public, so in Self-Defense, they started preparing their briefings about what’s happening in space every week.
Someone has recommended that I put a briefing in Usenet, a kind of precursor to the web, but it doesn’t exist yet. To my surprise, it was popular. And I never looked back.
In the US, in particular, we saw it more internationally than most news sources. I gave it the same weight as what Russians, Chinese and Europeans did. It helped me gain a reputation and people in the space industry started sending me information.
Why did you keep your space report free?
Honestly, most of the work I do for myself anyway. I am the No. 1 reader. But I now have this role of being someone who trusts to say what’s going on. If I don’t receive direct money for it, I can maintain its reputation for independence and objectivity.
How have space flight and space exploration changed in your life?
I grew up in the 1960s during a superpower. It was the US, the Soviet Union and the Cold War. In the 1970s, space became more international. China, Japan, France and others have begun selling their own rockets and satellites. Then, in the 1990s, there was a shift towards commercialization in both communications and imaging. And then there was another change in the 2000s and 2010s that I call democratization. There, cheap satellites created space within the budgets of university sectors, developing countries, or start-up companies.
The most important thing in space in 2025 is not that there are more satellites, but more players. This has implications for governance and regulations.
Another way to think about how things have changed is where the frontier is. When I was a child, it was a low-earth orbit. The frontier is now close to the asteroid belt, with the moon and Mars becoming part of the accumulation of humanity. On the other hand, low-Earth orbits are so normalized that they are not necessary to deal with space agencies. Just call SpaceX.
How do you plan to spend your retirement?
The UK has been actively and actively working recently in promoting what we call space sustainability. They are committed to using the space, but they are responsible. I hope to be involved in those efforts.
Compile Large catalogue of Space Junk Around the sun that the US Space Force does not pursue. It’s not anyone’s job to track it right now. We will return years later, so we need to put together our actions for things that are farther, farther, what we send out between the planets. We think that when it’s really a rocket stage, it’s an asteroid that hits Earth.
Obviously, it all needs to be scanned and it will take me years. Somewhere, a reasonable commute from London, you will need to find a new home in the library. My plan is to make it available by appointing it when it is unpacked.
What motivates me to closely record human activity in space?
As an astronomer, I think it’s a measure for a long time. I imagine someone who wants to know that, a thousand years from now, perhaps more extraterrestrial times, has stepped into space for the first time at this important moment in history.
I would like to save this information so that they can reconstruct what we did. That’s who I write about. Not today’s audience, but a thousand years from now.
Source: www.nytimes.com
