Release date: June 12, 2018
Subgenre: Aeronautics and Astronautics
About Rocket Surgeon:
Bringing together a lifetime of experience as a science fiction author, former aerospace materials engineer, cyber-security expert and irascible genius, Williams provides big picture views on our place in the Universe.
Based on a series of blog articles written for the "Speculative Fiction Showcase" and including material reviewed while performing research for his series "Terminal Reset", Williams explores and questions some of the most basic precepts of science and physics.
The recent popularization of physics in television and movies has opened up this field to the ordinary lay person.
In these articles, Mr. Williams looks at why we, as a species, crave to leave the Mother planet, and venture out into the hostile territories of uncharted space.
Williams explains, with his own unique and perceptive worldview, just how the Space Race, once the core being of America's science programs, has defined the processes and bureaucracy of space exploration today.
Williams provides a narrative of his own experiences, working on high-tech and cutting edge programs that led to the technological marvels we take for granted today.
From jet engines to smart phones, from "Star Trek" to "Interstellar", Williams helps readers to understand just how much the world has been impacted science and technology.
Is a Mission to Mars or other form of manned space flight our future?
Can we afford to spend our resources on these efforts, at the expense of other critical problems facing us today?
Follow Williams down the Rabbit Hole, as he looks at Fake News, the Presidential Election, AGW and other contentious events in our world, and body-slams them using logic and the Scientific Method!
A.E. Williams makes a compelling argument that manned space exploration is not just viable, but necessary to the survival of the species.
Excerpt:
One day, I was chaperoning my daughter’s second grade class on a field trip to Kennedy Space Center, and the Launch Complex.
(One of the few perks of that job...)
Before we left, the science teachers and I did a little research and found out that the ISS was going to pass overhead about ten minutes before the buses left with the kids.
As an added bonus, the STS “Atlantis” was launching that morning, about five minutes after the ISS would pass overhead.
It was pre-dawn, and we could just see the sunlight coming up.
The day was clear, with no clouds.
So we get all the kids out onto the parking lot, so they can get a good look, and sure enough, here comes the ISS, traversing from SW to NE.
It was clearly visible, and all the kids oohed and aahhed as it passed over us, looking like a dim star.
Then, five minutes or so later, there goes Atlantis!
Whoooosh!
Beautiful!
It lit up the sky, and was clear as a bell!
We boarded the bus, and a few short hours later, we were on the KSC bus tour over to the very pad where the shuttle had just launched that morning!
Cool story, bro, right?
The kids were all gawking at the pad, and we explained that the ship had launched here, and soon would be docking with the ‘star’ they had seen not five minutes before they observed the rocket’s red glare.
It was a really neat thing, and the confluence of events was extraordinary.
It would be almost impossible to plan and guarantee such a thing.
Later, as we went to see the Saturn V, we told them we would get to touch a piece of moon rock.
Let me tell you, I had a bit of nostalgia that day.
I'd worked on the LOX turbopump, and on some parts of the ISS.
There I was in the great big Saturn V exhibit, and my daughter was bragging to everyone in the class that her Daddy used to work on the 'space shuttle hot dog'.
That brought a real smile to my face!
But the best part happened when I was given this problem kid, Jayvon to watch over.
Now, this is a second grade kid, who doesn't know squat about anything, right?
So, we get to the Saturn V / moon rock room.
Jayvon was real quiet since he'd joined my group, but I was still keeping a sharp eye on him.
Then, I had an inspired thought.
"Come over here a second, Javon," I said.
"What for?” he asked.
"Touch this rock here," I said, and pointed to the moon rock.
He looked at me like I was nuts, and then touched it.
He rubbed it a minute.
I asked if anyone in his family had ever touched the Moon.
He looked puzzled.
“What do you mean?” he said.
I then told him that everything in the entire space program was set up so that he, and other kids like him, could do what he just did.
I told him that maybe 100,000 people had done what he'd done, maybe a million, out of ALL the people who'd ever lived on Earth.
His eyes got big.
I told him that this was his legacy, a birthright from being born when and where he was, there in the United States of America.
He was impressed, I supposed, and behaved fairly well the rest of the trip.
We returned to South Florida, the rest of the trip mostly uneventful.
(It’s never totally uneventful, when you are traveling with packs of wild second-graders!)
¯¯¯¯¯
Sometime later, my daughter brought me a note that Jayvon wanted me to have.
It was a thank you letter.
I think I still have it somewhere.
I kept hold of it, because Jayvon wrote it long after he'd gotten out of second grade.
He was a senior in high school.
Studying SCIENCE.
THE END
Copyright 2018 A.E. Williams
About A.E. Williams:
A.E. Williams has a unique background of military experience, aerospace engineering and intelligence analysis.
Born near Pittsburgh, A.E. Williams is man of a mystery. As a young man, Williams served the United States government in various capacities, which he then followed with ten years as an outfitter. Williams finally retired and moved down to rural central Florida, where he ran a medium - sized tilapia farm. He did his writing at night, usually accompanied by a bottle of Maker's Mark bourbon and a large supply of Classic Dr. Pepper and ice.
A.E. Williams is the author of the exciting hard science fiction series "Terminal Reset", which is about the effects of a mysterious force from billions of miles away from Earth that was formed millions of years ago. When The Wave strikes, everything changes!
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