Richard V. Rupp

November 17, 2021

Good Wednesday morning. I'm author Richard V. Rupp, writing from Burbank, California. Welcome to RUPP'S NOTES/FBI SPECIAL AGENT HARTMAN SERIES posts.

 

Well, so much for my Rams catching up with the Arizona Cardinals. They looked terrible in Monday night's loss to the San Francisco Niner's. If their offense, defense, and special teams, continued to play like they did Monday, they can forget about any playoffs. Oh, that was a tough game to watch.

 

"You've got to go there to know there" was a quote of Aora Neale Hurston, an African American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker who passed away in 1960. I'm fairly positive she was not referring to the Moon or space. But, I like her concept, and it can be expanded to the universe.

 

Learning is best accomplished by doing. Here's an old parable titled The Pottery Class that goes along with Ms. Hurston's quote.

 

* * *

 

The pottery teacher splits her class into two halves and tells the first half, "You will spend the semester studying pottery, planning, designing, and creating your perfect pot.  At the end of the semester, there will be a competition to see whose pot is the best".

 

To the other half, she said, "You will spend your semester making lots of pots, and your grade will be based on the number of completed pots you finish.  At the end of the semester, you'll also have the opportunity to enter your best pot into a competition."

 

The first half of the class threw themselves into their research, planning, and design.  Then they set about creating their one perfect pot for the competition.

 

The second half of the class immediately grabbed fistfuls of clay and started churning out pots.  They made big ones, small ones, simple ones, and intricate ones.  Their muscles ached for weeks as they gained the strength needed to throw so many pots.

 

Both halves were invited to enter their most perfect pot into the competition at the end of class.  Once the votes were counted, all of the best pots came from the students tasked with quantity.  The practice they gained made them significantly better potters than the planners on a quest for a single, perfect pot.

 

* * *

 

What's the moral of this parable and Ms. Hurston's quote?  The best way to learn about something is to go there and do it. 

 

My research indicates that we know how to travel safely in space. We can only learn so much with telescopes, listening devices, and probes. So to me, the best way of learning about space is to actually go out and explore it. Yes, there will be surprises. But they can be overcome. 

 

I just read this quote by Dr. John S. Tregoning with the Imperial College of London that applies to my novel SKYWARD. "Science is a team sport. The myth of the lone genius is exactly that, a myth. Science is done in groups, and all of whom are required to get to the end result." The "Clique" in my novel understands for their venture to colonization space to be successful, it very much has to be a science-oriented (STEM) team effort. While it is the "idea" of the "Clique," they cannot carry it out on their own.

 

In my last post, I likened the "Cliques" venture to colonize space was like a "Railroad to the Stars." Now think of the need for a train to add engines (2 or 3) to carry a lot of freight cars up a steep grade. That applies to my space railroad. And then think about a train with a bunch of flatbed railroad cars with an 18-wheeler auto transport semi-trailer trucks, each loaded with 7 cars on top of them. That applies to my space railroad.

 

The "Railroad to the Stars" in SKYWARD ends up using different types of vehicles to efficiently travel through space. There are heavy lifting vehicles (like three engine trains) that can break away from Earth's gravity and through its atmosphere to get colonists and supplies to the Moon. Then based on the fact that if a spacecraft flies only in space and not through an atmosphere, it does not have to deal with drag. Its shape and configuration can be sprawling and irregular. This allows larger (more like a cruise ship than a train), less air resistive designed spacecraft launched from a catapult to move further through space with dozens of people and lots of supplies. Broad solar panels can be deployed to gather energy from the Sun. Finally, smaller spacecraft (semi-trucks/cars) will go back and forth between the large spacecraft and the final destination. Initially, the larger spacecraft will be assembled on the Moon from parts shipped up from Earth. But, the plan is to eventually manufacture most of the parts for them in factories on the Moon.

 

So, yes, my mind works in crazy ways. It's called creative writing. And, it's fun.

 

Cheers,

 

Richard V. Rupp, Author

Website – www.richardvrupp.com

Email – rupprisk@gmail.com

Copyright©2021 by Richard V. Rupp