Constant of Change

So I'm going to try something new.

I just finished reading Project Orion, by George Dyson, and it has me feeling all political-e. If you havent seen it, I recommend the TED talk by George Dyson to get you started

Project Orion was an amazing and controversial plan to propel spaceships by nuclear bombs. I know, I know, you are thinking of a bunch of ways that that wouldn't work. Well, you are wrong. It would work, and it was studied to death by a bunch of people a whole lot smarter than you and I for a decade in the 50s and 60s and the conclusion is that yep, it would work. And it wouldn't be that expensive.

Because of politics, the effort was killed. That kind of makes sense too, right? Image the political ramifications of blasting spaceships around with nuclear bombs.

Anyway, I felt all sad but motivated when I was done to change the world in a positive way my making the political climate more conducive to space exploration. I'll spare you the details of my whole thought process, but the end result is the following:

I'm going to try to integrate my life, ambitions, and ideas into a more holistic effort. For those of you who don't know me, which is pretty much everyone reading this blog, I like thinking up move script ideas, and although you might doubt it, I actually think that I have some talent with it.

Did you know that Elon Musk produced a movie?

Arther C Clark, after thinking up geosynchronous orbits and some cool GPS applications in the 40s and 50s, made stories and movies

So there go two heroes of mine who have been great visionaries in multiple areas dealing with the advancement of spaceflight in our culture. If they can use their passions to bring compelling stories to the public, why shouldn't I? I think I'll write some scripts over the next few decades for some cool movies that convey compelling messaged wrapped up in a universe where America and Humans are explorers in space.

Business: So I got this minor in Management from BYU. Call me overconfident, but I think that I have a good head for business and fantasize, like a lot of you, about running some company some day that builds spaceships. We will see where my contacts and duties at Boeing take me over time. Way down the road, maybe I can do like Franklin Chang-Diaz and start a cool company based off of an idea, or maybe I can make like Brewster Shaw and run the space exploration division of a huge aerospace firm. Or Maybe I can make like Robert Curbeam and manage a division of a space contractor company.

Space: I'm going to lay it on the line. I'm an astronaut wanna-be. I just finished a Masters Certificate in Space Systems Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology, and I'm enrolled in an online masters Degree from University of Southern California in Astronautical Engineering. I'm planning on doing another Masters degree or PhD in Planetary Science from either UCLA or Caltech in January 2011 in Los Angeles, and after that I'm coming home to Houston to sink my freshly sharpened teeth into whatever manned spaceflight programs are happening here. Maybe I'll top off my educational pursuits with a degree in space architecture from University of Houston or an Texas MBA at Houston.

Sometime in there, I'm going to start applying for the astronaut program.

Up till then, I need to run in the mornings, do marathons and triathlons, get scuba certified, probably fix up a Volkswagen minibus, and other things that amazing astronauts seem to always be doing.

My daughter Lucy is 2, and my son is 7 months. I am going to spend tons of time with them and have more kids with my awesome wife.

Church, God, and spirituality is a big part of my life and it is going take up a lot of my time.

And I'm going to start double posting at opennasa.com and mamieandjohn.com
I can have my cake and eat it to, when it comes to which blog should I put my post at. Not all of my posts, of course, but why should I limit myself?

So the point of all this is just to say that I'm going to try and use www.actionforspace.com as a place to integrate a lot of the digital fragments of my life journey. Maybe just living my life passionately and openly can motivate people to be more proactive and positive about the space exploration. Look for sidebars and links to change to be a little more personal.