Excuse me, are you a rocket scientist?

Today I was flying back from Los Angeles to Miami non-stop.  Since it's a five hour flight I thought I'd take advantage of the time and get ahead on my grad school homework.  My class this semester is on rocket propulsion systems.  The textbook has a picture of the space shuttle with engines at full blast.

I'm flipping around in the book and writing down some equations for some of the problems when someone from the row behind me asks, "Excuse me, are you a rocket scientist?"  At first I thought how observant this person was.  I explained to him that I'm working on a master's in space systems and he explained that he's a writer in Los Angeles working on a story set in the future about the need to go to the moon.  I'll leave it vague because it's his idea.  I can tell you that I think his plot is very plausible in the near term with all that's going on in the world and the space program.  I gave him my card and told him to contact me if I can help with his ideas.

Also, at the conference this week I met up with the guys from Blue Origin (that's the space tourism company started by the founder of Amazon.com).  We had a nice chat about what's going on there.  It's been a great week for this fan of the space program.

Now I wish I could go to sleep....


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