Brett Rocket Scientist

About Brett Rocket Scientist

Brett creates artful work in engineering, ideas, and innovation. In addition to 2 degrees, 3 patents, and over 15 years experience in aerospace engineering, he is the author of several books to foster STEM careers. He volunteers his time and skills as an officer with professional societies.

The power of rapid feedback loops

I am loving the book publishing services through Amazon and CreateSpace!  Even the physical paperback book is possible to tweak and update on a fast and frequent basis.  It is entirely print on demand (POD), so I have zero inventory costs and so does CreateSpace/Amazon. “You don’t have to be great to get started.  But […]

Paperback quality control is underway

On Friday, January 9th, 2015, the paperback edition of How To Be a Rocket Scientist is unavailable on Amazon while an update to the digital file is under review and processing.  Thanks to one owner of the launch configuration (Jason) who gave me more grammar improvement suggestions than I expected!  To thank him for that […]

Flugtag best flights are aviation comedy

For this Fun Friday post, let’s enjoy highlights from Red Bull Flugtag competitions from across the world over the years.

 

Have you ever been to a Flugtag event?  Or better yet, participated?  Tell us about it!

I’ve really wanted to go to one of these events but it’s never been in a city where I lived.  And making the road trip with small children (or leaving them with the wife) hasn’t been an option.  Not yet anyway.

Flugtag proves that you can have a lot of fun making yourself or other things fly through the air…if you call this flying.  You’ll see the world record (as of this video) had more than some amateur rocket scientist effort involved.

Red Bull has of course been involved as a major sponsor in other (more serious and historic) aerospace events.  Those are worth separate posts in the future.

Happy flying and happy weekend!

Brett

How to make the world a better place

Millions of people in France and around the world are doing their best to make sense of the terrorist attack yesterday.  How should we deal with it?  How can we do something that makes a positive difference? I offer my humble sympathies and condolences for everyone affected.  It is a real tragedy.  We must acknowledge […]

Win a prize if you find typos in the paperback

This blog and website aren’t just about rocket science.  It’s also about learning by doing, plus sharing along the way.  That includes me!  I’m a firm believer in leading by example and walking the talk. I discovered a small grammatical error (actually two) in the paperback version of the book “How To Be a Rocket […]

Is warp drive possible – from Omaha? 2

I got this story from a good friend and colleague of mine in the aerospace world named Bill (who is deaf BTW, and that’s worth another post later).

You might want to remember the name David Pares.  You definitely want to watch this video and read this article from Omaha.com:

http://www.omaha.com/living/working-toward-a-warp-drive-in-his-garage-lab-omahan/article_b6489acf-5622-5419-ac18-0c44474da9c9.html?mode=jqm

David Pares is a professor at the University of Omaha.  He claims to have evidence already of bending space and shortening laser beams with his device in his garage.  The physics is inspired by accounts of pilots who have somehow instantaneously traveled hundreds of miles due to strong storms in the atmosphere (and it’s inspired by Star Trek, of course).

This is yet another reason why we still need more rocket scientists!  Is it really fair to believe that we’ve discovered and harnessed all of the energy and propulsion sources that are possible in this awesome, immense universe?  No, of course not.

It’s impossible to predict when or where (or if) we’ll ever discover warp drive and make it possible.  But it just might come from Omaha.  Or maybe someone reading this blog will have something to do with it…

Also worth asking: can you be deaf and work in aerospace?  Yes indeed!  It ain’t easy.  But then neither is rocket science.

Take care and take charge.

Here is David Pares’ company website for Space Warp Dynamics LLC (perfect name, right?!) http://swdllc.paresspacewarpresearch.org/

 

Removing friction from communication

Effective communication is essential for aerospace projects.  And this humbitous website.  Real communication is a two-way exchange.  That’s what an open and active dialog of ideas is, and that’s what we need here. So I’ve changed the settings to allow anyone to post comments to the blog posts, whether or not you’ve subscribed.  There is […]

Asking WHY isn’t just child’s play

Why do kids enjoy asking the question “why” so many times?? Even though it can get very tiring or annoying for the parents or teachers, they are using an effective tool from engineering and manufacturing.  Including rocket science!  It will be powerful for you as a current or future rocket scientist too.  It has been […]

Rocket scientist jobs with SpaceX in TeXas

Does the “X” in Texas stand for SpaceX?!  For some fortunate rocket scientists it will! Thanks to the rapid-fire blogging of Robert Zimmerman (here), an article in the Brownsville Herald here talks about two job openings there with SpaceX.  I’ll summarize and comment now for your convenience (and hopefully insight). The two positions are for […]