Thursday, July 30, 2009

The Launch Pad: The Way Forward

Growing up in the "Cradle of Aviation" on Long Island, NY where the Grumman Corporation's friend's parents were involved in aerospace, i.e., the Lunar Excursion Module (L.E.M.) or nearby one might spot a one man helicopter flying over the potato fields from Gyrodyne, today an area developed out of farms into the growing Stony Brook University, I was struck by the implied military focus, if you will, of most of it. The F-101 Voodoos, nuclear capable, redesigned into the F-14 Tomcat, 80 sold to the Shah of Iran, where they were also supplied with over 3,000 employees to train Iranians for it, in a compound outside Tehran, were the mainstay of the US and Canada air-strike capabilities. Beyond the military emphasis, we must encourage more civil aviation at the "ground" level that will encourage more women into the civil aviation field, so that future pilots and personnel are more balanced by gender for the future non-military uses of space. I look forward to Tighar "finding" Amelia Earhart and perhaps Fred Noonan this season.
The Launch Pad: The Way Forward
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