Maria Varmazis
Podcast host at N2K CyberWire covering cybersecurity, social engineering, and the security of space systems and critical infrastructure.
“Where are the jobs at, Maria? And the answer that I often get from folks in the industry is go back in time and join the military, which is a very unsatisfying answer for a lot of us.”
T-Minus: Space-Cyber Briefing · October 2026
The hosts are discussing a shortage of space cybersecurity professionals, after a new presidential proclamation on a US Space Academy. She says listeners constantly ask her how to get into the field, and the industry has no good answer for people who didn't come up through the military.
Transcript
in fact, we may not want to do it at all, but we can. Exactly.
…I think the word convoluted system that is space. And that's really off-putting for a lot of people who are, especially are young in the field or even at the older side, have been in the field for 40 years. They're like, yeah, I don't want to go migrate to that. That sounds like a nightmare.
Yeah. And also, how do you skill? I mean, this is something we talk about on the show all the time, practically every week. And every time I go to a show and I meet listeners or something, and I know some of y'all listening right now, you all ask me the same question. I love this stuff. I want to learn more about it. And or where are the jobs at, Maria? And the answer that I often get from folks in the industry is go back in time and join the military, which is a very unsatisfying answer for a lot of us. But for those of you who want to do that, that's awesome. Thank you for your service. But that's not something everybody can do. So this, this United States Space Academy, again, I was like, oh, cool, search for the academy. But I mean, in all seriousness, let me just, so this, this was a proclamation, not executive order. I'm looking at it right now. So it's technically not an executive order. It
is technically not an executive order. Yeah.
So what is the proclamation? What's the difference there? Well, didn't even know this was a thing.
So it's a, it's, let's put it this way: a proclamation is not, it's even to our conversation last episode, where we talked about how an executive order is not literally law, but has the weight of law. It's like the kind of law. It's the same thing, but even weaker, right? Like that's how I've…