Nell London

The pandemic was especially hard on Black-owned businesses.  They suffered three times the declines seen by other ethnic and racial groups.  At the same time, a publication that supports Black businesses in Denver has been on hold since the first shutdown.  But now it’s back.  The 2022 edition of the Little Black Book launched last week.  Carla Ladd is the publisher.

The new GOES-T satellite is scheduled to launch into orbit on Tuesday, March 1, 2022. Colorado’s Lockheed Martin built the satellite, which will improve weather forecasting and climate science. Adrian Cuadra is program director for Weather and Earth Science at Lockheed Martin.

Experts predict the world could lose half its languages in the next hundred years, including that spoken by the Ute Mountain Ute tribe in Colorado’s Four Corners region. To save their language, the tribe has created a digital dictionary.

Shieko Uno went to run an errand last December, and while she was out, her house burned to the ground. Uno is a piano teacher. The Marshall Fire reduced the home where she taught for nearly 30 years, and her pianos, to ashes. Like many other fire survivors, she’s left with the clothes on her back, memories, and a desire to find consolation where she can.

Birk Irving is taking his hardest trick, the double cork 1620, to the Olympics. For those not in the freeskiing universe, that’s two backflips plus four-and-a-half rotations. Irving was born and raised in Winter Park.

Colorado native Nicole Lewis is the launch director for Virgin Orbit. Her latest mission: to launch seven satellites into space off the wing of a 747.

The language of the Ute Mountain Ute tribe in the four corners region of Colorado is endangered: Just over 100 people on the planet speak it fluently. To save their language, the Ute Mountain Ute have created a digital dictionary with help from the Language Conservancy, a group that works to protect endangered languages. Juanita Plentyholes is the project coordinator with the Ute Mountain Ute tribe. Wil Meya is with the is with the Language Conservancy.

Golda Meir, a founding mother of Israel who signed that country’s Declaration of Independence and served as Prime Minister during many of its early crises, spent formative years living in an unassuming brick duplex on Denver’s west side.

Colorado is minting another astronaut who might one day walk on the moon. Air Force Major Nichole Ayers is one of 10 people in NASA’s newest class of candidates. She was selected from a pool of 12,000 applicants. Ayers is from Divide, which is near Colorado Springs and she attended the Air Force Academy.

NASA says its new telescope is one of the most ambitious and complex missions it’s ever attempted. The James Webb Space Telescope cost $10 billion and could transform our knowledge of the universe. A rocket is expected to launch the telescope next week and its optical system was built in Colorado by Ball Aerospace. Ball also helped repair Webb’s predecessor, the Hubble telescope. We speak with Makenzie Lystrup, who is General Manager of Civil Space at Ball.

December 7 is Pearl Harbor Day, marking the surprise attack 80 years ago that propelled the U.S. into World War II. More than 2400 Americans were killed, nearly half of them crew members of the U.S.S. Arizona. Donald Stratton, of Colorado Springs, was on the ship that day and survived. Stratton died last year at the age of 97. He shared his experience at Pearl Harbor in the memoir, “All the Gallant Men.” Nathan spoke with Stratton’s co-author, Ken Gire, in 2016.

Long COVID may have something to teach us. Those lingering symptoms of pain, brain fog, and exhaustion are familiar to people who haven’t had COVID but suffer from chronic fatigue. Those with chronic fatigue are often told “it’s all in their heads.” Dr. Michael Gallagher of Denver was a triathlete and contracted a common virus but says while he says he seemed to get better, he wound up bedridden.

The longest-running women’s film festival in the country is underway in Colorado Springs. The Rocky Mountain Women’s Film Festival has promoted films by and about women for more than 30 years. One of those films about youth is a “David and Goliath” story about 21 young Americans suing the U.S. government over climate change. The documentary “Youth v Gov” was produced by Olivia Ahnemann of Boulder.

A recycling truck in space could solve a growing problem: trash in Earth’s orbit– junk that threatens everything from GPS satellites to the space station. Last week the U.S. Space Force announced a plan to promote manufacturing and recycling in space. That’s an opportunity for Denver-based CisLunar Industries, which is working on space recycling. CEO Gary Calnan explains the technology and Colorado School of Mines professor Angel Abbud-Madrid weighs in on the potential implications.