Back in the early/mid 90’s, when I was getting my Aero E degree from Iowa State U, the Iowa State Space Society put on several “Mid Continent Space Development Conferences,” where we got a surprising number of aerospace “luminaries” to come in and give presentations on whatever their topic was… Bill Gaubatz from McDonnell-Douglas on the Delta Clipper, Robert Forward on several “crazy” concepts (I drove him from Ames to the Des Moines airport – or vice versa – once, and had what at least to me seemed a good conversation regarding wormholes and time dilation with him), Seth Shostak from SETI, Len Cormier and his Space Van concept, Lori Garver from Ad Astra, Chuck Lauer (for orbital “real estate development,” later to be one of three founders of the late lamented Pioneer Rocketplane), Leik Myrabo (for whom I gave the introductory remarks, and managed to mangle both his name and that of Rensellaer Polytechnic… yeah, not one of my crowning moments) for laser propulsion, and numerous others. (now THAT is a run-on sentence!)
One of the others was Anthony Zuppero from the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory. He spoke to us of colonizing not planets (like Mars… at the time, the idea of blowing off Mars was heresy to young chuckleheads like us), but comets. And he showed us how it could be done, using the resources available in situ.
Sigh.
The days when I was young enough to think I might actually live to see such days.
Sigh.
Anyway: It turns out that Zuppero has written a book, a memoir on his experiences in aerospace. It is discussed in this article in The Register. And it is also available for free downloading as a PDF file HERE.
Yes, I was vain enough to do a search for my own name, since I knew I’d met him. And lo and behold, there it is, along with the names of fellow students that I haven’t seen, heard of or in some cases even thought of in 14 or so years. Hell, even my parents get the tiniest little mention.
I’ve not read the whole book, just a few bits (yes, starting with the MCSDC stuff). But his recollections of the MCSDC certainly match mine, and bring back the memories:
Pretty quickly I noticed that the only place I had ever been that was
more dismal than Idaho Falls in the winter was flying and driving
in Iowa in mid winter. The extra depressing element was that
from the air one could not see any mountains anywhere in Iowa,
and we could in Idaho Falls. We could see majestic mountains
from an airplane above Idaho Falls.
Got that right. Iowa in winter is charitably described as “dismal.” Especially when I recall that driving across Iowa in winter once involved my Ford Escort hitting a patch of ice, going into a spin on the entirely ice-covered highway and thinking “well, at least I’m the only idiot out here,” and then seeing the headlights of a Peterbilt coming out of the mist. Ba-BAM!
Another of Zuppero’s anecdotes, that, had I put some more thought into this some years back, could have saved me considerable headache:
I was supposed to be the featured evening speaker. But Robert
Zubrin, also there on no money, said it would really help if he could
speak in my place and I speak at his place. I should not have let
him. It is a status thing to be the featured evening speaker. Zubrin
did not publicly thank me for trading. That was the rub. Never
again, Robert.
Snerk.
Now, doesn’t that bring back a few years worth of unpleasant recollections…
Zuppero discusses his ideas at some considerable length in his book. In short… nuclear thermal rockets “burning” water ice, the ice taken not from Earth but from the comets that the rockets are used to colonize.
Zuppero also discusses his Asperger’s Syndrome at some considerable length… a topic of some small theoretical interest to me. And he pretty much nails it:
<> I will sometimes go too fast. I will sometimes say things that are
<>simply not supposed to be said that way. Because I am an Aspie,
<>I can’t see what’s wrong with doing these things at all. If I went
<>too fast or confused you, tell me and I will try to fix it. Maybe
<>not.If I use inappropriate language or say things that are too graphic
and just not proper in mixed company, or that are insulting or too
mean,
too bad.I’m an Aspie.
You are supposed to treat me nice, like we treat mongoloids and
other weird people.
…
You don’t like my exaggeration? Too bad. I’m an Aspie.
…
One always has a “day job” that you do to get money. One also
has a fantasy, a hobby daydream you think about all the time. It’s
the daydreams that make magic happen. And that is what
happened. However, it took a while and was mostly
disappointing the entire time. I never got rich either. And I got
fired a couple of times. Aspies just have a hard time with social
situations, like a boss.
…
Asperger’s Syndrome seems to be a real thing, just like ADD is a real thing. But it’s also become a somewhat fashionable diagnosis… seen by some as a convenient excuse for behaving like an asshole. But I’ve seen more than my share of “Asperger-Like” behavior in my aborted aerospace career . Aspies are, or at least can be when utilized properly, a massive benefit to whatever organization or project they’re working for. But what I’ve also seen are Aspies whose skills are ill-utilized (“Wow, you’re a great design engineer. Here, be an accountant.”), coupled with entirely too many non-Aspie assholes in positions of managerial/political power. Zuppero makes several references to Aspies being like Spock from Star Trek, which is a reasonable analogy… but imagine if Starfleet had taken a good hard look at Spock’s record and decided that he’d be best utilized as a singer of jingles for the “Be All You Can Be, Join Starfleet” ad campaign.
Download his book. It’s a bit rough (it’s clearly a draft, and needs some serious editting), but what I’ve read so far is certainly engaging.
7 Responses to “Tony Zuppero, Mad Scientist”
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We must both have picked the same day to go over to “The Register”!
I’ve downloaded the pdf, although I haven’t started reading it yet.
I also forwarded the link over to sci.space.policy and .history as it sounded like it would be right up their alley, and those moribund newsgroups need all the help they can get.
Getting a view of Orion from a outside perspective should be fun.
>We must both have picked the same day to go over to “The Register”!
Actually, I got an email directing me there.
One of the people I sent the email to is one of the better editors out there, IMHO, so we’ll see.
If the authors hadn’t, apparently, already had a deal in place for “The Rocket Company” then the editor could have probably gotten it out at a better price then AIAA Press charging ~$40 for a Hardback Novel by a couple of unknown authors … and with much better exposure for it.
Thanks for the link Scott. I remember Anthony fondly from our MCSDC days.
Yeah, he was a hoot. I feel so old and broken down, though. Back then, the Delta Clipper was soon going to spawn the DC-Y, which would lead the way to regular and cheap space flight; orbital tethers were going to be flinging payloads to the outer planets, lasers were going to be blasting people onto joy rides to space, Mars was going to be colonized soon, comets and asteroids would soon be landed on and exploited. Most importantly, there would actually be a job market for aerospace design engineers… who would actually *design.*
Gah.
Thank you for the inadvertent good press. Or, I am so Aspie I think these comments are good press. I was sure what I had written at http://neofuel.com/inhabit were only of interest to a bygone time. Perhaps it is still only of interest to those times. It is one of the clear examples of the “Epochal Event” syndrome, where things change at a rate faster than your carreer time. >>> Do you have any suggestions for a writing partner who understands Media Events? Writing for a big audience? <<< cheers to Scott Lowther
> Thank you for the inadvertent good press.
As good of press as I can produce I suppose. It’s a good book, but like I said, it’s in serious need of editing. I’m an ironic one to talk, given how bad an editor I am and the screwups I make, but still, there was some stuff that could use improvement. For instance, do a “find/replace” of “Start Trek” with “Star Trek.”
> Do you have any suggestions for a writing partner who understands Media Events?
I know a number of good aerospace authors (Dennis R Jenkins, Jay Miller, a few others). How interested they might be in such collaboration, I can’t say. But I coudl forward a message on to ’em.
Sounds like the Orion stuff you found Back in The Day was all the later 10-meter design stuff, which was essentially the last desperate gasp of the program. A vast amount of technical and engineering work was doen on the larger 4,000 ton designs – most of it still classified, however.