everybody needs a start

At some point… perhaps around now… you will probably want to know what’s up with this blog. Director, what’s my motivation?

There are a couple of things.

One: space is cool. There’s just no way around it. Space is cool, and the idea of living in space is also cool, and has been so to me for as long as I can remember. I have had a copy of Earthrise for a long time, and it sits framed in a place of honor with my Splatasaurus model. Sometimes at night I fall off the sidewalk because I’m looking at the stars instead of where I’m going. I want to walk on the moon. I want to ride go hiking on Mars. I want to skim across the surface of Saturn’s rings. Until that’s possible, I’ll have to make do with writing about it.

Two: science is cool. I majored in physics because I was captivated by it even when it drove me totally up the wall. I took a class on the history of evolution and electromagnetism (yes, both at the same time in the same class) and it changed the direction of my life. Science tells me things from the shape of the universe to  why I stay in my seat when the coaster goes upside down even though I haven’t held onto a handle since the 90s.

Three: people in space needs a lot of science. When I prepare for a hiking trip there’s stuff I need to make sure I’ve accounted for: food, water, appropriate clothing, ICE information, maps. But I don’t need to worry about where the air I’m going to breathe is going to come from, or how to get more food if it’s been a while since my last trip to the store. For people in space, the problems only start with “where is the air coming from.”

Given my statements about the coolness of One and Two, this makes “people in space needing a lot of science” cool².

So that’s why. Because these concepts have a temperature slightly lower than normal for me. And it’s fun. I hope that, with all the things I write about here, someday we will be able to go hiking on Mars.