They did it! NASA successfully lanuched the Ares 1-X this afternoon. The rocket, a prototype for NASAs future shuttle, is the tallest ever built and nearly reached hypersonic speed.
Mission managers watch as the Ares 1-X launches from NASA Kennedy in Cape Canaveral, FL. The photo was taken by Bill Ingalls.
This.
This is the next big step toward interplanetary exploration. This excites me so very much.
Vaguely Modeled after the MacArthur Fellows Program the idea would be to provide a living stipend, health insurance, and other amenities to an individual on a year by year basis which would allow themselves to fully commit to following and fleshing out an idea.
The purpose would be to provide stability to the very chancy process of exploring something so new that there is no way to know if it might fail spectacularly.
In my head the foundation would have a very small staff to handle the management of money, selection process and other such things, then all the grant receivers would essentially be on the organizations payroll (allowing for health insurance options and what not) but would have no responsibility to report back to us except when applying for a grant renewal at the end of the year.
I constantly find myself much more drawn to non-fiction than fiction. This is not to say which is better or that they are even comparable, simply what my preference is. But, even in this light, my book selections as of late have been entirely limited to scientific non-fiction.
I want to branch out within my branch. Not the most daring move, but I am looking to explore the lives of great men and women of our past. Does anyone have any recommendations for great biography’s, collections of essays, or gatherings of tales that truly inspired and moved them?