We don't wait for students to find aerospace. We bring it to them.
Texas is building the space economy. SWIFT builds the workforce to power it — removing every barrier between an ambitious student and a career among the stars.
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Texas is at the center of the space economy boom.
But the workforce to support it doesn't exist yet — at scale.
SWIFT was founded to close this gap — at scale, across every corner of Texas.
We didn't guess. We did the work.
SWIFT analyzed thousands of real job postings and worked directly with employers to translate hiring needs into clear, actionable workforce signals — a bottom-up analysis of who the space economy is actually hiring.
- 100,000 new Texas space jobs projected over the next decade
- 47% of openings require only a high-school diploma
- Nearly 1 in 8 listings is for a welder
Published October 2025 · 19 pages · Dr. Leon Vanstone & James Peterson
Explore The Signal — all our data & policy
Three gaps are limiting the Texas space workforce pipeline.
Access Gap
Students in underserved communities and rural areas have zero exposure to hands-on aerospace and rocketry during the K–12 years when career trajectories are shaped.
Credential Gap
Community colleges and early college programs lack the lab infrastructure to deliver the hands-on training space and defense employers actually require for hiring.
Pipeline Gap
Returning veterans and career changers seeking to enter the space economy have no structured, credentialed pathway to do so.
HICAM hosts the SWIFT Rocket Lab maker space
The Austin Community College team exhibiting their first liquid bi-propellant engine sponsored by SWIFT
SWIFT Rocket Lab at HICAM
Hayes Innovation Center for Advanced Manufacturing · Austin, Texas
Students Build Liquid Rockets
Real propulsion. Real hardware. Students design, build, and test liquid rockets in a professional-grade facility alongside aerospace mentors.
Credentialed Program Development
Stackable credentials recognized by Texas aerospace and defense employers — from entry-level to advanced tracks.
Year-Round Operations
Capacity for multiple concurrent cohorts serving high school, community college, veteran, and career-changer populations.
Employer Connections
Direct pipeline to aerospace and defense hiring partners — SWIFT's built-in workforce delivery network.
Now operational
Unlocking underserved and untapped talent.
High School Students
Early career exposure, CTE outreach, and rocketry workshops brought directly to schools.
Community College Students
Hands-on lab access, stackable credentials, and direct employer connections.
Returning Veterans
Structured re-entry pathways into aerospace and defense that leverage prior technical training.
Career Changers
A credentialed pathway into the space economy for motivated adults ready for a new direction.
Operational, connected, and ready to scale.
PVAMU Space Hub Partnership
An active institutional partnership with Prairie View A&M — SWIFT's first formal university-credentialing collaboration, anchored by a $2M student space lab.
SXSW Space House 2026
Geoff Tudor moderated 'The Space Cowboy: A New Industrial Workforce' — a national platform for SWIFT's mission alongside leaders from across the industry.
Rocket Lab Sponsorships
Sponsoring student rocket labs statewide — including the first liquid bipropellant rocket built at a Texas community college (Austin Community College), and programs at UTPB, Rice, and Texas A&M.
Space Workforce Partnerships
SWIFT convenes Texas's top space employers alongside leading ISD CTE programs and community colleges — building dual-credit pathways that put students on a direct track into the space industry.
From launch sites to community colleges, SWIFT is already in the field across Texas.
Led by mission-proven aerospace leadership.
Geoff Tudor
President, Board Member
Space policy veteran. Congressional sponsor of Clementine — which found ice on the Moon — and DC-X, the rocket that invented vertical landing. Wrote commercial space legislation. Patent holder in the architecture powering today's mega-constellations. Now building the workforce Texas needs to lead the next space age.
Dr. Leon Vanstone
Vice President, Board Member
Founding Director of the Texas Rocket Engineering Lab (TREL). Rocket scientist and hypersonics expert — and the man behind over 100 student careers launched into aerospace. One of his students won the Collier Trophy for work on Firefly's Blue Ghost lunar lander. Leon doesn't just teach the frontier — he sends students there.
Joseph Kopser
Board Member, Defense & Innovation
West Point graduate. Army Ranger. Bronze Star recipient. Harvard Kennedy School. Co-founded RideScout, acquired by Mercedes-Benz. White House Champion of Change. President of Grayline. Joseph opens the doors inside DoD's defense and advanced technology units that most organizations never get to knock on.
Harvin Moore
Board Member, Investor & Advisor
Was on the launch team for the world's first commercially-funded rocket in 1982. Since then: banking at Treasury, tech CEO, COO of a commercial space company, faculty at International Space University, and board leader across NASA's Space Center Houston. Harvin brings institutional depth and a lifetime in the room where space and education intersect.
Join SWIFT.
Invest in the workforce that will launch Texas into the next era of space.
Send us a message
Questions, partnerships, press — or just say hello. Prefer email? geoff@swiftrocket.org