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Creating Science Non-Fiction
Recently I stumbled across Daniel Scrivner’s podcast “Outliers” interviewing Dylan Taylor, CEO of Voyager Space Holdings. Within the first minutes, Dylan blurts out he first became interested in space watching Star Trek episodes with his dad at a young age. Me too!
I can remember watching Star Trek in the early 80s every day at 6 pm with my dad — especially during the summers. I credit my dad with fueling my curiosity with space but perhaps more importantly, science fiction.
As a junior in high school, my parents arranged for me to attend Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. I may have been the oldest kid there but it didn’t matter. The experience was incredible. I played the engineer role and made a “repair” in a 25-foot deep tank with SCUBA gear.
I also distinctly remember being in a Shuttle simulator during an exercise that didn’t involve the engineer. Bored, I picked up the manual and started reviewing procedures. Suddenly, a simulated anomaly flashed into the dark cabin. Hold on, I just read about that. I yelled up to the pilot and captain, “Hey, you need to cycle these buttons to fix that.” They looked at me like I was from Mars. “Trust me, I just read about this.” Sure enough, that fixed the problem. When walking through the after-action review, the instructors said no team had ever addressed the problem that quickly. Fortuitous, I guess.