As we approach the end of another annual orbit around our sun in 2019 – and the end of another decade – I hope you are spending time with reflection and goal setting while you also enjoy the holiday celebrations.
Along with my festivities and reflections, I have been wondering what to do with this website.
Created with the mission of helping more people chart their own unique trajectory into the world of aerospace and aviation, it has been its own journey of 5+ years, 150+ blog posts, a book on Amazon, and thousands of interactions with people from around the world.
This website still gets +/- 400 unique visitors every month, so I do not want it to disappear as long as it has the ability and potential to make a positive contribution to people and our society.
It may not be a certain or big impact, but I know that one person can make a difference. And I’m still biased in the belief that it is our rocket scientists, space explorers, and aviation professionals who have made – and will make – the most impactful and inter-generational differences to our species. When you look up at the moon, our nearby planets, and distant stars – we are just getting started!
If this is your first time visiting this website – welcome! Please enjoy your choice of several pathways to learn (or help someone else learn) how to be a rocket scientist:
- Enter a search term to find relevant content from the past 5+ years
- Look at the 10 tips for how to be a rocket scientist, then pick one to learn more about as a free chapter from the book
- Learn about all 10 tips by ordering the book on Amazon
- If you follow the tip in the book to ASSOCIATE WITH OTHERS in the aerospace community by joining AIAA (the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics – which is actually a global organization happy to accept people from any country) and still feel “out of place” or left out of their programs, get in touch with someone in this AIAA working group. Also for the past several years, I have volunteered as the Secretary for that group. It is time for me to hand that role off to someone else but you will be in great hands no matter who you talk with there.
- If you still want or need more help from me or discussion with me after that, make direct contact!
Our world is always changing, and our careers change too. At least they do if you are always learning, growing, and have any external forces making a big impact on your life.
Since launching this website, my career has evolved into the domains of technology, IT, and most recently civil and environmental engineering. They may not be the first places you expect to find an aerospace engineer with a fluid dynamics concentration, but there are plenty of needs and opportunities for a person with those skills if you chart a course in those directions. (See Tip #2!)
There is another reason to keep this website powered-up for 2020. The book that shares the name for this website started an exciting journey of its own for me. Creating and publishing nonfiction and reference books has become a very fun, rewarding, and (relatively) successful venture in itself. (Consider the time scale however – taking 5 years is proof that persistence, continuous learning, and adaptability can pay off eventually.)
It won’t be easy to predict what kind of updates you’ll see on this website – or when. But it might be sharing of a fun puzzle and activity book for kids about space travel. Or airplanes. Something like this example which is a puzzle book about Tesla automobiles:
Or it might be a composition notebook, daily log book, or work journal with an aerospace or aviation theme. Like this one with the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) – the Lockheed Martin F-35:
Or maybe it will be an illustrated children’s book about a kid who dreams of becoming an astronaut and space explorer. Then he or she does… then makes an epic discovery… and sends messages back to others so they can benefit from this discovery too…
Do any of those books seem appealing or worthwhile to you? Please leave your thoughts with a comment below.
In the meantime, this website will stay online as a resource available to anyone who finds it. There won’t be many new blog posts in 2020, but there are plenty of pages built and launched here since 2014 to help move someone’s journey in aerospace or aviation forward.
Until the next update – thanks again for maneuvering onto this website and reading this article. My best wishes to you as we all make another lap around our sun in 2020!