About GarBlog

The actual title of this blog is GarBlog, very originally named after the short form for Garret’s Weblog. The unofficial blog title is Liberation of an American Rocket Scientist, which is 37 letters long and entirely more catchy than GarBlog. Too long for a blog title though. I would’ve shortened it into acronym form–LARS–which is cool since my mother’s side of the family are Larsons, but there happen to be plenty of people in the blogosphere out there named Lars, and I can’t really compete with that.

Besides, I’m a NASA engineer and we use acronyms like they’re going out of style.

So I’m not really a rocket scientist. I’m an aerospace engineer. Technically, I’m an “Engineering Mechanics and Astronautics Engineer”. But “Liberation of an American Engineering Mechanics and Astronautics Engineer” just doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?

No. It does not.

“Liberation” because this is supposed to be a breaking free of sorts. It isn’t exactly literal in meaning. I can’t say I have been ruthlessly oppressed or enslaved by anything or anyone (unless you count that time I got stuck in Green Bay, Wisconsin, wearing a Chicago Bears jersey). Anyway, there’s intrigue in “liberation”.

And I feel compelled to figure stuff out. This blog is created in the liberating spirit that accompanies a true, genuine inquiry into figuring stuff out. Tough stuff. Funny stuff. Deep, uncomfortable stuff. Stuff of all kinds.

This figuring stuff out thing was heavily influenced by my last semester of college. I decided to extend the college experience several months by adding a study abroad semester in Moscow, Russia in the Spring of 2007. I took out a few additional student loans and moved into an apartment with a Russian family on a language-intensive study program that had me commuting an hour to and from classes in a former Communist Party secret headquarters, trying to establish a tolerance for Russian vodka and body odor among throngs of passenger-cattle in Moscow’s hectic public transportation system.

After the semester, I embarked on an epic 14,000 mile overland journey from Moscow to Singapore with the intent of establishing a better sense of nothing short of the truth of the universe and the human condition.

I’m still trying to figure out if I made any headway on either front. There is a small chance the truth of the universe was discovered on the corner of a busy pedestrian street in front of a kareoke bar in the Mongolian capitol of Ulan Baatar, but I can’t for the life of me remember where I left it.

At the same time, I have a really cool day job. I work for NASA as a Space Shuttle Crew Escape Engineer and I’m responsible for engineering support and processing of astronaut cooling units and portable breathing apparatuses. I have a first row, behind-the-scenes perspective on what it takes to send people into space and, as a public servant and space advocate, I feel it’s a part of my duty to share some of my experiences with the world.

That’s it. I consider my life to be extraordinary and I’m lucky to have seen and done some pretty extraordinary things in a short period of time. In the words of Jacques Cousteau: “When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.” Amen Jacques.

So enjoy! And have a great day.

-Garret Fitzpatrick