Hello fellow enthusiast.,
I’m David, from Pearland Texas, just south of Houston. I’m forty-eight years old, with a beautiful wife, three children and a wonderful grandson. And every since I was a kid, and watched Captain Kirk kicking alien butts, I’ve been interested in space, Sci-Fi, and even UFO-ology. I’ve never owned a telescope. But now that the kids are gone and out of school, I finally made the plunge last Friday. Lucky for me I work with someone that belongs to the Houston Area Astronomical Society. And also lucky for me, this gentleman owned two very nice telescopes. Key word being “owned”. Because I bought his eight inch Meade reflector telescope. He kept his ten inch. I only wished I had done this years ago. It is truly amazing checking out the moon and Mars. With the Mar’s opposition occurring now, and the fact that my five year old grandson is showing a real interest in astronomy these days, I knew I had to make a purchase quick. And I did so with no regrets. Tomorrow I’m having several of my friends and family over for rib-eyed steaks and Mar’s watching. I’m REALLY looking forward to showing off my new telescope.

So here’s a big howdy from Texas, David

Hello:
My name is Sandy and I live at the South Jersey Shore.
I am a retired professional dog Handler also a breeder of Boxers and Pugs.
I'm an avid birder. My main interest are, Raptors. This area is a mecca for migrating birds so, I'm very fortunate.

I am a rank novice in this world but it's awesome! Mars got me into this and I'm grateful.
Have purchased several books. Turn Left at Orion, 365 Starry Nights,The Stars, by Rey(nice book great for the novice) and last but not least Night Watch.

Now I need a Telescope.... Any reasonable thoughts?

Sandy

Hi all

My name is Mikael Kandell, im 40 years old and living in beautiful Philippine islands(because i married a sweet filipina 2 years ago )

Originally im from Finland..small country in nothern europe and i have been dreaming about space and space exploration since i read my 1st sci-fi novel
(i was 12 i think and it was Asimov's Foundation, still my favorite)

Space is my real interest in life..and my dream is to be part of space exploration someday soon( i know i can't be astronaut so i have to contribute other ways

I like your website very much Fraser, and all like minded people here have ignited my passion for space again. thank you all.

Im not much of a writer so expect only short comments from me :P , but i will be reading all posts here, keep writing folks.

I have a Dream i want to share with like minded people, but that i will post later when i have enough courage to try a long post

Mikael

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Mikael Kandell

We need "first foundation" now...join me:)

=)

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Hi everyone! My name is Duane, I am from Calgary Alberta Canada and work in the insurance industry.

I'm also 40 something, married with three children.

I have been interested in astronomy for as long as I can remember, probably starting with the moon landings when I was 9 years old.

I found Fraser's newsletter through internet trolling about 6 years ago & have been recieving his email news ever since.

I am becoming inspired to take some astronomy courses--I understand the U of Calgary has an excellent program.

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All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct.~ Carl Sagan ~

Humanity must rise above the Earth, to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only then will we fully understand the world in which we live.~Socrates, 500 B.C. ~

Let every man judge according to his own standards, by what he has himself read, not by what others tell him. ~Albert Einstein~

hai everyone.....thee name is SAILORMARS @ ERIC. GUESS WHAT...I came far away from MALAYSIA (ANYONE REMEMBER 'THE TALLEST BUILDING IN THE WORLD' ?). Well.. i just sign up as a member here when i want to know about the Mars thingie..so i stuck here(kidding !). Wel, bro. Fraser sure have my e mail change then (thanks ; ). Lots of information that iwant to know much about space and the mystery of it...EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT...- MALAYSIA'S NEWEST MICROSATELLITE, RazakSat is one to be launch somewhere around this month or next month. Just search on RAZAKSAT on any search engine to hear more. One suggestion please....could you find some news about Asian space scenery. It would be great to hear something on the other side of the world..

keep on boosting onto the neverending space,
SAILORMARS @ MOHD. FADZREEQ- ERIC:>zephyreric@yahoo.com

Hi Everyone,

I am new here, but the information is great. I am just learning about astronomy and am taking a couple of course thru the Barnes & Noble University and find the sky so interesting. Someone in the course sent me here and I am sure glad.

Welcome folks... get posting!

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Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

Hi people,

My name is Uli Shabani, i am a 23 year old student at York University in Toronto Canada. I am currently taking physics and am in my 3rd year. As u can tell, i like this kinda stuff My main area of interst is theoretical physics, more along the lines of cosmology theories, but that doesn't stop me from trying to learn about other things.

I guess that's all i have to say for now.

I'm glad to be here, and i have been on the mailing list for universe today for maybe 3 yrs now... good stuff, it keeps me up to date on news and keeps me thinking.

Hope to talk to you all soon, and perhaps post some replies on the forums.

gotta go back to classes! <_<
oh well!

L8TZ

Hi everyone!

Mi name is Ignacio, and I'm a 24yo doctor from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I was always awed by the night sky, but what really made me wonder about what is beyond our atmosphere were the visits to the local planetarium when I was a kid and, of course, sci-fi!

Now I'm studying to become a genetic investigator (I know, some distance between whole patients and DNA).

My interests (besides the topics mentioned above) include: music, cinema, tech and science in general (this is starting to sound like a personal ad). If it is in the Discovery Channel, i like it, unless is a show about cooking.

I suscribed to the newsletter just before the forums were opened, I try to read every story and follow almost any kind of topic. You guys are great! I think your answers, and more importantly your questions, fill this forum with the most advanced science discussions. Keep it up!

Chau.

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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein

Hi andy2020. Great that you worked on Apollo back in Space Age I . A whole lot of people all around the world really appreciate what you all achieved. The first step. Always the big one, whatever comes after, and what comes after hasn't even begun to arrive yet.

You mention money. Money is a great invention, really useful for helping to quantify and then record and account for exchanges or trades of things perceived as being of value. Very necessary procedures when trading something for something else, although of course there is no need to establish, quantify or record the value of a good, a thing of value, freely given and received.

Money also can sometimes act as a repository, storehouse and preservative of value. Amazing. Someone can actually inherit and utilise the value of the work their grandparents did as young people on a little house in the prairie even though they live in another place and another time. Van Gogh and Gauguin sat down one day and did some work on their paintings. If you find one of these in your attic you can transform a Van Gogh into a monetary number expressing its value that he never knew it had, or at least the local artists' materials shop or the boulangerie or the bar didn't recognise. You can then take the money round to Burt Rutan and he'll build you a spaceship, or at least a spaceboat or spaceplane.

But when we start really thinking from first principles about what might be possible for the nascent independent Space Sector to achieve, as you are prepared to do, we cannot confine our attempts to understand the nature of money to the area of expertise of financiers, accountants, investors, sponsors and fundraisers. As someone once said, space is big, mind boglingly big.

Anyone thinking of doing space is going to have to think really big, and start talking to economists. Doing space impinges on the whole economy of a country, as is realised in some countries but not yet in others. Nowhere near, as yet, the economic effects or benefits of war, but a measurable impact.

Next step must be to find someone who understands some rocket science and some economics. The search is on.

Regarding your thoughts about what can be achieved spaceside in the next 250 years or so, the sort of time gap since Newton and Liebnitz and suchlike, that is exactly the way we should go about it, thinking in small manageable time units. Lately I've been stuck in a rut trying to understand what might be achieved in just the next twenty-five years in reality, rather than in the imposed (lack of) vision of current conventional (lack of) wisdom. It's nice to be able to take the little bit longer view of even a quarter of yet another millennium.


Philip

A few years back I had a dream I somewhat remembered in the morning. The focus of the action was a private space agency or not even an agency, just a big private company doing what NASA does now. As I am a former civil servant, I was, upon waking, taken aback by this, but maybe that's what the future will bring!

I hope the future will bring all kinds of different space agencies, both private and public run. More = better.

Oh, and welcome. :-)

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Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

hi iam rob from england (leicester) i have been looking at this site for a few days now and as i am about to start a degree in astronomy and plantary sceince the discussions held in these forums are great i have lots to learn and lots to ask so perhaps you educated people out there can help me learn and ill share my opinions

ps great site #the only one i keep coming back to


10/10

Thanks Rob, welcome to the forums!

Spooon!

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Fraser Cain
Publisher
Universe Today - Free space news delivered by email every weekday.

HI My name is nelson,i am married w/three kids one of each.I do not believe any thing i read and only half of what iread .I question averything .I find if i really question the answer either changes or is ignored.I do not have many friends guess why but i tell the truth and i will not treat you like a mushroom, i wiil not leave you in the dark and feed you bs. thanks for listening.

Hi everyone, my name is Neil Price,I live in Canberra, I am a 30 yo uni drop out (social work) whose preoccupation with my web site holds me together:

My Webpage

It's pretty broad.
I was attracted back to space in the late 90's with the exoplanet discoveries. My interest in space is artistic/aesthetic , as oppoesed to mathmatical, if I ever overcome my fear of maths that will definately change.
My interests are the Galactic Center, Asteroids, the distence to Proxima Centuari , multiwave astronomy and making a map of it all, particularly impressed with Solstation.com (definately worth a visit)
zephyr46@lycos.com
Cheers

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My Webpage

This is a pasted copy of the e-mail I sent the originator of this topic. (I'm still working out the format here) I wrote it as if everone was going to read it... any way I know at least spaceguy will

Seti project is winding down, but they do support a new data crunching program. I believe they explain this on their home page. But do go for it, especially if your from the school where you never turn your computer off and you want to feel like you're not wasting electricity... ( the argument is that the continued heating and cooling of the motherboard eventually stresses the micro connections and the continuious expansion and contraction breaks them causing the MB to die... plus most problems occur during start up so if it's runnig LEAVE IT ALONE!!! <=== old school windows reason) Most decently modern comps can run this continiously while you are doing everything else you want...
my user info... yawn
Data units completed: 793
Total computer time: 40782hr 19 min 16.2 sec
that's = to 4.656 years
Class of Sept 26, 1999

I also responded because I have some friends in oz trel ya
My chat friend writes a nationally syndicated health column for the newspapers... Jules. She's a gem. look her up in your local paper! Yoose ozzies been fun to know. So's I could'na resist sayin G'day M8!

oi!! thats alot of time...

I'm at like 81 units =) with 5000 hours.... yeeeee...

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HI. I'm my name is Kyle, and I'm 15 years old and a freshman in high school. You call call my interest in space "obsessive." I live in Hutchinson, Kansas (in the USA), home of the Cosmosphere!!!
I love to read, especially a good sci-fi book, and I also like to swim and ride my bike.

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&quot;Human curiosity and the desire to make the intangible tangible, has led us into a new age where the New World has been settled, and the West has been won. But if you think that we, the human race, has conquered everything there is to conquer, then just look to the sky--at space--last and greatest of the frontiers.&quot;

Hullo ,
My name is John Fowler (CHOOK, of course) and I live in Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, Australia with my beautiful Spanish wife Rosa.

I worked for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, for 16 years and met my wife there. When we started having children we returned to Australia to bring them up as "fair dinkum Aussies".

My wife plays the flute, and I play the trumpet in the city orchestra - which has nothing to do with "space"; but thought I'd tell you anyway.

Like others, I don't know how we started receiving Frazer's E-mails, but we soon got hooked and are now regularly contributors to the Forum - where really great discussions take place, sometimes a bit heated, but that is all in the fun. We are all still good friends and I will remember worthy apponents like PARKER, STARRMAN and StarMileBest for some time to come.

I am very grateful to Frazer for the hard work he has done creating and maintaining this site. How has he had the time to father a child?

See you on the forum ...