Podcaster, journalist, and content creator with over 15 years of experience, Maria excels at telling stories that captivate and entertain. Her enthusiasm for space and cybersecurity shines through in her professional career and personal interests.

In this episode, Maria shares her journey from a child fascinated by the cosmos to a professional amplifying the stories of today's space industry.

Once a girl who kept her love of space to herself, Maria has channeled her passion into a successful career, blending her expertise in cybersecurity and journalism with the space sector.

As the host of a daily space podcast, she works to demystify the industry and keep it current, making the wonders of space more accessible to enthusiasts and industry experts alike.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Maria's childhood fascination with space and overcoming social barriers.
• The transition from cybersecurity to space communications.
• Insight into the interconnectivity of global space innovation.
• The growing accessibility of space industry careers beyond engineering.
• How private industry and data from space are shaping our future on Earth.

Quotes:

"I didn't have any friends who were interested in space like I was, and, I got made fun of a lot as a kid for being interested in this stuff. So I kind of learned to not share that part of me, and I kept my obsession for space pretty much within just my family."

— Maria Varmazis

"We are now living in an era where the space industry is bustling with opportunities for professionals from all backgrounds, not just those with aerospace credentials."

- Maria Varmazis

Episode Links:

T-Minus official website: https://space.n2k.com

Connect with Maria on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varmazis 

Maria’s Website: https://mvarmazis.com/

Credits:

Production by CxS Partners LTD

Executive Producer: Toby Goodman

Audio & Sound Design: Lee Turner

Artwork: Ryan Field

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Kids that age are obsessed with space. It's so easy. I mean, it's cool. Like, all their clothes have, like, rockets on them. It's all neat. And then something happens. They hit a certain age, and it's suddenly like, oh, that's not real. It's like talking about fairies or unicorns.

Like, that's that's all unreal. It's like, why are we lumping space in with the unreal? I'm Maria Vermazes, and you are listening to your business in space. I help space professionals get the information that they need to do their jobs more effectively, help them understand what's going on in the industry and the world around them. When I was a kid, I was a a nerd. This was at a time where Star Trek The Next Generation was on TV and Hubble was in the headlines a lot, And I was obsessed with all things space, both on the science fiction realm of things and what was really happening, what Hubble was seeing along with the repairs to Hubble. And being a nerdy girl at that time was a bit of a lonely thing. I didn't have any friends who were interested in space like I was, and, I got made fun of a lot as a kid for being interested in this stuff. So I kind of learned to not share that part of me, and I kept my obsession for space pretty much within just my family.

My family knew that I was a big space nerd. But, aside from that, I kind of repressed it because it was just not cool, and, getting made fun of at school is not fun. So that followed me as I grew up. I figured space was not something that I could pursue for a career. I was very interested in astrophysics and astronomy specifically, but I figured, well, if I'm getting made fun of like this as a kid, there's no way I'm gonna try and pursue that as a job. So as I was growing up, computer science was becoming the hot new thing, and I was pretty good at math and science. I was doing well in those classes, and I enjoyed coding. I had taught myself to code, and I figured I'll be a computer scientist.

That's science that's sciency. That's engineering y. It's not space, but it's adjacent. I'll do that. And I went to engineering school for 2 years to be pursue a computer science degree. And 2 years into that, after completing my sophomore year, I I came to the very obvious realization looking back on it that I was miserable. It was not something I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I was competent at at at it, but I didn't wanna be doing that till the day I retired.

So I dropped out of college to try and figure out what the heck I was gonna do with my life, and I left an engineering degree behind. And for almost a year, I worked as a college dropout in a publishing house just trying to do data entry and make some money while I was trying to figure out what the heck to do with my life. And the only thing I could think of after that time was I really enjoy telling stories. I had been part of the high school newspaper. I'd been the editor in chief. I really enjoy chasing stories down. I loved kind of figuring out the narrative and telling people what I had learned. So I decided maybe I'll try to get back into college and pursue a journalism degree.

And, miraculously, I I managed to make that happen. Although every college I applied to but one rejected me at that point. I managed to graduate with a journalism degree, and I was feeling very, when I graduated, I was feeling really despondent. I figured, what the heck is anyone gonna do? Hiring somebody with 2 years of engineering school, dropped out in a journalism degree at a time when journalism is dying, nobody's gonna want that person. So that was not a great way to start my my career. I was pretty down by a a a lot of hard work and I, honestly, a lot of luck. I landed a job in in the trade press, which is, business to business. Right? I was covering procurement, which is not what I do now.

I did. And so this company hired me. And for 4 years, I worked on their corporate marketing and PR team, and I got to learn the ropes from the inside about corporate storytelling, understanding how to translate a very technical topic like cybersecurity, encryption, you name it, these very, very heavy technological fields and translating that into language that people who aren't technically gifted, I suppose, or or sort of don't have that insider knowledge, helping them understand it. That I found to be an extremely valuable skill set, and I've I've leaned into that in my career. So I continued working in cybersecurity companies for quite some time. All the while, loving space, following space, but not telling anybody about that. I figured, like, there's I don't I don't know about any space jobs. I don't know anyone in the space industry.

How would I know? So I just continued with my cybersecurity stuff, which was a great career. I really enjoyed it. And about 7 years ago, I decided to take a hard left turn in my career, and, I said, you know, I've done a lot of work for corporations. I wanna see if I can work for myself for some time, and I also wanted to develop my art career. I'm also an illustrator. This is something I also do. And on a whim, I applied to attend a NASA event because, again, I'm a space geek at heart. I really wanted to be part of what's going on in space, but I didn't know I didn't have an inroad.

And I applied to a NASA event to attend as an illustrator, and this was the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope. And this was a very competitive event. A lot of people wanted to go. And for some reason, NASA said I could go. They chose me. I couldn't believe it. It was like an amazing break. And I went to this event.

I met all sorts of other science communicators, technology communicators at this event, many of whom had tons of followers and, like, very well known people. And I got to meet them and spend a lot of time with them over a couple days. And I think being in that space, recognizing I knew a lot more about space than I realized, and that my skill set from cybersecurity and communications in general, that could apply in all sorts of ways. Like, the that experience is not an or, it's an and. It's something that I could transfer quite easily to the space world. And it just so happens around that time, I didn't know this, but I was being scouted essentially by my current employer. They were thinking of starting a space podcast, but they didn't know who could be a a host. And at that time, I was doing a lot of cybersecurity podcast work.

But they thought, well, Maria is not interested in space. She's never indicated publicly that she's interested in this kind of thing. So she'd be nice, but that's too bad she's not interested in space. Around that time, they saw me tweeting like, hey, I'm at NASA right now. I'm at the James Webb Space Telescope event to see the first images from this incredible, incredible telescope. And it just the timing just worked out where they said, oh. And so she actually really is interested in space. So much so that she went to this event and she covered it.

And she, you know, she had a great time and she understood what they were talking about. Maybe she would be a good fit for this project that we're thinking of. And the conversation started from there. And I'm now more than a year into the job of being a host of a daily space podcast, which I can't believe it. But if I had told my little geek self back in middle school that she would be doing something space related every day, I don't think she'd believe it. But that is how my life has turned out, and I I feel very fortunate. I've been in this professional space world for a little over a year now, maybe a year and a half, technically. I still consider myself very much an outsider on that, and I'm okay with that.

I feel like that's actually kinda helpful given what I do for a living. My job is to learn. So I I I wanna be in that learner mindset every day. I think for me, a lot of people do have this conception, and I feel like the industry sometimes also doesn't help on this, that you have to have, like, an aerospace engineering degree. You have to have a master's degree. You have to be really academically pedigreed to get a job in the space industry. And I I truly, that was the case for a very, very long time, but that has changed. It is changing now.

Think the industry could do a lot more to signal that to people. Not every job requires those levels of academic, that that bar to clear. There are a lot of jobs that don't require, you know, having a master's degree or PhD. And people, I think, a lot of people self select out of the space industry because they're so intimidated by that idea. We put up these paragons, these amazing people, like astronauts, who are just like the best of humanity. Right? I mean, of course, they are. But not everybody wants to be an astronaut. So what does it look like if you're you wanna be in the space industry, but you don't wanna be an astronaut? What is the path there? And we're not really telling people that there are ways in.

There are so there it's not just for, you know, communication jobs like mine. Like, there's legal jobs. There's, you know, compliance jobs. There's procurement jobs. Like, all sorts of jobs that don't require, you know, being an astronaut wannabe. So I feel like that's one that I still encounter a lot as a space outsider learning more about the inside who also talks to a lot of people outside of the space bubble. That would probably be the biggest misconception I I encounter quite a bit. In terms of the opportunity in the space industry right now, I mean, I think for a lot of people, especially mid career, we grew up seeing NASA, especially, like, its budget slash slash slashed.

And a lot of programs that were really exciting, sort of withering on the vine. Like, they it didn't die. Like, we, you know, we got to see the ISS and the shuttle program. But I don't know. As a space kid growing up in the nineties, it was really demoralizing seeing how much space was just not a priority. And it was pretty clear with, like, the state of things that just NASA was really not in a great place, at least for for those of us who are space geeks. We were like, oh, we wanted to see something like Apollo level, and we just weren't seeing that happen. So I think a lot of us who were interested in space, who are now in our forties and fifties, kind of gave up on that being a viable option.

But I wanna implore those people to take another look at what's going on because it's space is not just NASA anymore. Space is, of course, involves NASA, but the private industry is doing so much incredible work. And there are so many opportunities there that, I mean, I don't think people even realize are part of it. There's so much money going into private space right now. There's so much innovation happening with the intersection of not just what's going on in space, but also what's happening with the data that's coming from space. Even if you're not like a hardware geek, if you're a software geek, there's so much there's just reams and reams of data coming from space that people are still trying to figure out how to parse that and find meaningful insight. And it's it's literally if you are the type of person who knows how to take that data and make it into something insightful, that it can literally change lives, especially in when we're talking about, like, climate change and resiliency. It's absolutely amazing to see what's happening there.

So just the the pure amount of satellites in orbit and all that data coming down, somebody's gotta figure out what to do with all that data, and there's so much opportunity there. So for me, as, like, a software person who's now in the space world, If I could go start over again, that's probably where I would go if I was in my twenties. But now, I'm older than that. So I would say that would be the opportunity that I would go after. Right now, I'm focused on I'm laser focused on making sure every day we put out a fantastic show full of information for space professionals that is helpful and actionable and interesting in a way that helps them do their job and feel more informed and, you know, they're they're going into work every day going, I have an understanding of what's happening in my professional circles, and that'll help me do my job better. So it includes things like covering launches, covering the latest, you know, series or funding rounds. We like to have a a a special focus on what's going on globally. So as much as the United States is doing amazing things and leading in all in, you know, this the world of space, there is so much going on globally.

I have a 6 year old. Kids that age are obsessed with space. It's so easy. I mean, it's cool. Like, all their clothes have, like, rockets on them. It's all neat. And then they something happens. They hit a certain age, and it's suddenly like, oh, that's not real.

It's like talking about fairies or unicorns. Like, that's that's all unreal. It's like, why are we lumping space in with the unreal? It's very real. So what's going on there? So I'm really interested in exploring that, not just for my kid, but also just on a the narrative and and sort of exploring that artistically. So that's my world right now. I'm Maria Varmazes. You've been listening to Your Business In Space. You can hear me every day on T Minus Space Daily, which you can find in your favorite podcast app, also@space.n2k.com.

That's our official website. And all the ways to connect with me, including my LinkedIn, are in the links in the show notes.

To discover more, head to interastra.space