Space Ops & Design -  I helped bootstrap the United States Air Force Academy's Astronautics department small satellite and stratospheric balloon program a few years ago.  It was a heady, entrepreneurial time that I tremendously enjoyed.  I was involved with the following launches in various technical or programmatic ways (each has more details on the Astronautics web pages):

• Glacier, March 16, 1996 (balloon) - I helped with communication ops and launch/recovery activity.  Seeing live video of a payload cut loose from 94,000 feet above a weather front crossing Colorado is irreplaceable, especially when your impressionable 9-year old child is with you.  The payload tested magneto-torquing effects.
• Blue Moon, May 17, 1996 (balloon) - Flown to test active thrust stabilization of a platform.  I spec'd, designed, and helped build/debug the telemetry modulation and communications subsystems.
• Falcon Gold, April 20, 1997 (balloon) and October 24, 1997 (satellite) - The Falcon Gold project included designing and building a satellite payload that hitched a ride on an Atlas booster in October 1997, after flying a prototype on a balloon to 106,000 feet.
      As part of the balloon payload recovery team, I had a special challenge DF'ing to the descending payload.  We were led to a Pueblo, Colorado landfill, but then the signal behaved erratically.  Turns out two locals saw the descending parachute, recovered the payload into their pickup and drove away with it!  We ended up driving up and down civilian subdivisions as a caravan of civilian, government & military vehicles, with racks of equipment, a trailer of stuff reminiscent of the "Roswell incident", military people peering out of the windows, and antennas everywhere -- looking everything like a scene out of X-files.  We found the payload stashed in a storage shed behind a house occupied by only a suspicious grandma.  Turns out she personally knew the Sheriff.  Interesting outcome...
      The satellite successfully collected samples of the GPS spectrum from above the constellation and downlinked data to ground stations.  I selected ground station software, working specifications with a contractor, and helped caressed the telemetry link for the most data possible.  The missions were covered in both USAFA and AIAA publications, and the AIAA gave us a special team award for this work.
• FalconSat, May 2, 1998 (balloon)  - The most recent effort was a satellite designed to study charging effects, with concurrent commitment to a bus design versatile enough for future launches.  My primary emphasis this time was supervising and teaching cadet teams who are building the Command Telemetry and Data Handling hardware and software.  The first satellite under this program launched in Nov 1999.

I keep expanding my triad of Engineering, Science, and Operation experience, with hopes of being selected for an astronaut position with NASA. The Air Force Special Flying Programs nominated me in 1993/5/7, but NASA did not invite me to interview.  A Spring 1998 visit to the Astronaut and Astronaut Selection offices clued me in to better ways to present my package, and I applied again to the 1999 board as a civilian.  I was called for an astronaut interview during February 2000, but didn't make the final cut.  In the meantime, I watch for exciting work in areas of aviation, satellites or space probe design (in particular software, command & control, telemetry, and autonomous behavior vs. mission determinism).