Saturday, August 9, 2008

And Now We Wait

I'm terribly sorry for the delay, folks. I moved recently and have self-imposed a "Do Not Even Put In the Order for DSL Until I Finish Remodeling the Bathroom" policy. So, I write to you today from a cafe in Madison which is inexplicably featuring Grasshopper Day today, replete with story telling and a guy who can mimic pretty much any animal in existence (this guy is up there with Sgt. Jones from Police Academy).

Anyway, I am writing today to inform you that I have been accepted... into the application process. I recently received a postcard from the NASA Astronaut Office indicating that my application was complete and under consideration. In other words, I made it in before the deadline, and at least one person will look at my application. Hooray!

NASA's timeline is somewhat vague about when I'll hear back from them about my status. I suppose the latest will be November when they start interviewing the "Highly Qualified Candidates," though I will likely hear from them sooner. I'll be sure to keep everyone up-to-date on the process.

In other news, I've been invited by the kind folks of Web608 to give a talk on lunar mining. This will be only the second time that I've been requested to speak about my job, the first being a Pi Tau Sigma (mechanical engineering honors society) meeting. I'm really excited to share my experiences and knowledge regarding the engineering discipline required to design for space applications. Of course, Web608 is mainly devoted to web 2.0 stuff, but being a blogger, I suppose I qualify.