Why I Like Stars

I just picked up a book that has sat on my shelf or in moving boxes for the past eight years: Rocket Dreams, by Marina Benjamin. I don’t know why I picked it up. I do this from time to time when walking past my book shelf and I never really know what compels me to do so. Maybe there’s an invisible hobbit or leprechaun sitting on my shoulder whispering commands in my ear, I don’t know.

I paged through the book, stopping on a star with a circle around it written in pencil next to a paragraph where Benjamin writes about the philosophy of spaceflight, citing french scientist turned philosopher, Gaston Bachelard.

“Intent on pinning down the psychic tic that leads us to look toward the vast heavens for personal meaning, Bachelard suggested that there exists a correspondence between external immensity and inner intensity. When someone meditates on the infinite universe, he argued, something of its grandeur is conferred on him or her, and he or she experiences an expansion of being. In this quasi-religious state, the mind, freed from its own kind of gravity, is able to experience a new purity. Probing deep space thus becomes akin to searching for one’s soul.”

Ahh. So that’s why I like stars.

It’s ALLLL making sense now.

In related news, I’m eternally thankful for making notes in books I know I’ll keep for years and years for just this reason.

The Question: Why?

Inspire 5 06_jun2011

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(Transcript from JSC “Be Inspired” speech given on June 7th, 2011)

First, a really brief intro on me, how I got here and why I want to talk about the question why.

I grew up in a town in the suburbs of Chicago called Westmont. That was my house for 20 years. I had a basketball hoop and a pool and no brothers or sisters to steal my toys. My first pet was a goldfish, named Speedy. (This is not an actual photo, just a representation). These are my parents. They bought me the goldfish. And, ya know, also raised me. I grew up wanting to be a paleontologist first—which might have been the first sign I was going to be a true nerd one day, I had this HUGE dinosaur thing—then I wanted to be a professional fisherman, then an NFL running back, then an architect, then for about 3 days a wrestler / rock star / snake charmer… probably a good thing that was a phase… and then I wanted to be an astronaut and that one kinda stuck for awhile.

Dreamy, Spacey Salmon

From “The Dream of Spaceflight”, by Wyn Wachhorst:

(One of my favorite books and probably the only reason I ever got hired by NASA way back in 2003 as a co-op- because I had just finished this book before my interview and was pumped up on wild, abstract ideas and dreamy imagery and poetic quotes… come to think of it, good thing the interviewer didn’t think I was insane or drugged…)

“We are fascinated by the roiling surf for the same reason we are transfixed by fire: we too are matter asserting itself as energy. So are the fires of the night sky, where our being was written long before planets were born or oceans condensed or mortal cells emerged from primordial soup. The communion of cells formed a lung, a heart- an eye. And the world awoke.

Touche

“A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are built for.” -John A. Shedd

Touche, John A. Shedd. Touche.

Reigning Follies

“A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.” -Samuel Johnson

Who Will You Become?

From “What Should I Do With My Life?”, by Po Bronson, Dec. 31st, 2002, article on fastcompany.com:

“One of the most common mistakes is not recognizing how these value systems will shape you. People think that they can insulate themselves, that they’re different. They’re not. The relevant question in looking at a job is not “what will I do?” but “who will I become?”