Saturday, May 14, 2016

Jeff Bezos and Space

Jeff Bezos has been getting attention in recent years for doing things like creating Amazon and buying the Washington Post. His interest in space exploration and development hasn't attracted as much general attention. Perhaps that will change with the Transformers meeting on Wednesday, May 18 at the Washington Post.

Bezos has an interesting personal history. He was born in 1964. His biological parents marriage lasted less than a year. His mother remarried to one Miguel Bezos by the time Jeff was four. Miguel came to the United States from Cuba after the Communist takeover as part of Operation Pedro Pan (see Pedro Pan and Wikipedia on Peter Pan. Miguel (known generally as Mike) became an engineer in the United States

The Space Race between the United States and the Soviet Union attracted much attention in the 1960s. It really got a good bit of attention after the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite in 1957 and the first human into space, Yuri Gagarin, in 1961. The United States eventually won that race when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon on July 20, 1969. Jeff Bezos was five then. That was old enough to remember such a significant event. I suspect his engineer stepfather Miguel paid a good bit of attention to this race, especially since he escaped Communist Cuba as a teenager.

Space faded from general interest after Apollo 11 – but not for some engineers, scientists and imaginative visionaries. One man who was a member of all these groups was one Gerard K. O'Neill) who was a physics professor at Princeton University. O'Neill got a good bit of attention in the larger world with his book The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space that came out in 1976 which made an interesting case that the human race was on the brink of developing large space colonies that would house thousands and then millions of people doing things to benefit humans on Earth. Think, for example, building large satellites that would capture solar energy and beam it to Earth to power Earth cleanly and cheaply.

Jeff Bezos was a boy growing into a young man during the 1970s. He graduated from Miami Palmetto High in 1982 as class valedictorian. What was his valedictorian address about? Space colonies. The Miami Herald has an interesting article about this.

What was his next step in his education? He went to Princeton University, starting out as a physics major. I suspect Gerard K. O'Neill and his advocacy of space colonies had something to do with this decision. Bezos soon switched to his first loves of electrical engineering and computer software though. Jeff also became president of the Students for the Exploration and Development of Space while at Princeton. People can find an interesting account of Bezos' work doing that on Gaiome.

After graduating from Princeton, Bezos first found work on Wall Street before starting Amazon in the 1990s. More recently he has started Blue Origin. Let me say Jeff Bezos is still quite interested in space exploration and development.

The event Transformers, while it does have some interesting people in fields outside of space who are working to make interesting changes in their fields, does have some interesting people who are working to change space as well. At least that is what I get from reading the Post's description of this upcoming event at the Washington Post website.

The big question in my mind is the timing of this event. Why is it on the Wednesday that is the start of ISDC and the middle day of Humans to Mars?

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Black People and the Divine Family

If you could take a time machine back to the 1950s and spend some time with my family in the community in which we lived (Hamilton Township, New Jersey, right outside of Trenton) you would learn some important things about my family. My family took family quite seriously, as they did church and the larger community. We also paid closer attention to Rutgers than most people because my father and grandfather had gone there. Dad made Eagle Scout so we respected the Boy Scouts highly. We were also Episcopalians and took church quite seriously but very positively. We did respect people of other religions, though. Because Dad's Mom was Canadian, we also spent more time than most Americans visiting that wonderful country.

My first black friend was a boy named Arnie. We met when we were both 5 years old and started kindergarten. My parents encouraged that friendship as they did my friendships with other children I met in school and elsewhere. When Arnie and I turned 8 we were old enough to join the Cub Scouts. Mom and Dad started a Cub Scout den which met in our home every week. Arnie was one of the boys that I – with encouragement from Mom and Dad – recruited into our den.

Most of our family's vacations were oriented to trips to Canada because of Dad's family connections. In 1957 we took our first trip south. Why? 1957 was the 350th anniversary of the founding of the first successful British colony of Jamestown in what is now Virginia. That trip is where I first saw racial prejudice in action. At age 11 I knew that there were differences between men and women that caused there to be different restrooms for men and women. It was in Virginia that I saw separate restrooms for black and white and different water fountains for black and white. Partly as a result of that trip, I began to understand in greater depth what black people – especially in the South – were struggling to change, helped by white people such as my family.

The first famous black man who started changes in my life was Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. He inspired many of us with his leadership for civil rights and his commitment to nonviolence. His and others commitment to civil rights made a big impression on this son of Eisenhower Republican parents as did his commitment to nonviolence, especially when considering the behavior of groups like the KKK.

Something happened in October 1962 that caused me to take my first independent political position. That was the month of the Cuban Missile Crisis. I already had a better idea of what nuclear war would do to our country and world because of my growing knowledge of physics and aerospace technology. Influenced by the example of King, I became a Eisenhower Republican pacifist.

In more recent years I have continued to make black friends. One who has been significantly important to me is one Paul Roberts Abernathy. He was, until he retired a year ago, rector of St. Mark's Episcopal Church on Capitol Hill.

When I moved to this area, I count myself fortunate to have met many fine people through the Capital View Library, Episcopal Church of the Atonement and Peacetimers Toastmasters. I look forward to growing relationships with the fine people I have met here.