aldine vaqueras 2010

Duration : 0:2:37

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There was a hitch, of course. Chang-Diaz wasn’t American. He lived outside the United States. And the Costa Rican didn’t even speak English.

No matter. Chang-Diaz would overcome these obstacles and more to fly a record-tying seven missions aboard the space shuttle. Along the way the physicist would also develop a plasma rocket that promises a revolutionary approach to spaceflight.

The rocket, potentially, could blast the next generation of astronauts to Mars in just 39 days, about one fifth of the time required by existing rocketry.

At a time when much of Houston’s space community is openly hostile to President Barack Obama’s desire to remake NASA’s human spaceflight program, Chang-Diaz, 60, is among those welcoming it.

“Even though this transition is very strong medicine, and it is being applied at a very awkward moment, it is the right thing to do,” he said.

From his perspective, if humans are ever to venture substantially beyond Earth’s moon, they’ll need advanced propulsion systems to do so.

And the sooner NASA begins reinvesting in them — funding for advanced propulsion dried up in 2005 when money was diverted into the Constellation program to build conventional rockets to send astronauts back to the moon

— the better, says Chang-Diaz, whose Clear Lake rocket company, Ad Astra, could profit from such a change.

On Thursday, in a speech to promote his space policy plans, Obama confirmed that it will take new technologies for NASA to explore deeper into the solar system.

“We’ve got to do it in a smart way,” he said at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “We can’t keep doing the same old things as before.”

One-way ticket to U.S.
Chang-Diaz’s story begins in a San José bank, where he worked as a teller after graduating from high school to scrabble together enough money to come to the United States. After nine months Chang-Diaz had saved $50 and convinced his dad, a construction foreman, to buy him a one-way ticket to America.

In 1968 he arrived in Hartford, Conn., to stay with distant relatives. Not speaking English, he enrolled in a local high school to learn the language and, in time, apply to college.

“Of course it was a disaster,” Chang-Diaz recalled. “The first marking period I failed everything. But from being at the bottom I began to improve, and towards the end of the year I was near the top of the class.”

So promising a student was he that Chang-Diaz earned a partial scholarship to the University of Connecticut. He sailed through college and, later, graduate school at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying mechanical engineering and physics, with an interest in plasma, an electrically charged gas that responds to electromagnetic fields.

By 1979, Chang-Diaz was a citizen, and NASA was seeking scientists for its new space shuttle program. In 1980, he became NASA’s first Hispanic astronaut, moved to Houston, and six years later launched aboard Columbia.

“I flew on all of the space shuttles,” he said. “I flew on Mir. I flew on the International Space Station. I just got to experience everything. Having come from a little country in Central America, sometimes it’s amazing for me to even believe.”

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/6964775.html

Well good for him. He did very well.

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SERIES/TRILOGIES
The Dragon Chronicles- Chris D’Lacey
Harry Potter- J.K. Rowling
Inheritance Cycle- Christopher Paolini
Pendragon series- D.J. MacHale
Inkworld Trilogy- Cornelia Funke
The Edge Chronicles- Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
Lord of the Rings Trilogy- J.R.R. Tolkien
Shannara series- Terry Brooks
A Song of Ice and Fire- George R. R. Martin
Memory, Sorrow and Thorn trilogy- Tad Williams
Shadow Children series- Margaret Peterson Haddix
Warriors series- Erin Hunter
Darkest Age series- A.J. Lake
A Series of Unfortunate Events- Lemony Snicket
Land of Elyon series- Patrick Carmen
Sisters Grimm series- Michael Buckley
The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series- Michael Scott
Alanna series- Tamora Pierce
Ranger’s Apprentice series- John Flanagan
Chronicles of Vladimir Tod- Heather Brewer
Chronicles of Narnia- C.S. Lewis
Guardians of Time trilogy- Marianne Curley +
Bartimaeus trilogy- Jonathan Stroud -
Percy Jackson and the Olympians- Rick Riordan ++
Artemis Fowl series- Eoin Colfer +
Mortal Instruments series- Cassandra Clare
Switchers trilogy- Kate Thompson
The Giver trilogy- Lois Lowry
Time series- Madeleine L’Engle
The Dark is Rising sequence- Susan Cooper
Fablehaven series- Brandon Mull
Enchanted Forest chronicles- Patricia C. Wrede
Chronicles of Ancient Darkness- Michelle Paver
Septimus Heap series- Angie Sage +-
The Hunger Games trilogy- Suzanne Collins +
The Underland Chronicles- Suzanne Collins
Maximum Ride series- James Patterson

BOOKS
The Spell of Seven" edited by DeCamp
The Hobbit- J.R.R. Tolkien
I Am Mordred- Nancy Springer
Hawksong- Amelia Atwater Rhodes
A Wizard of Earthsea- Ursula K. LeGuin

AUTHORS
Tamora Pierce
Brian Jacques
James Patterson

The Maximum Ride series by James Patterson
The Angel Experiment
Schools’ Out Forever
Saving the World and other Extreme Sports
The Final Warning
Max
Fang – just out

Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke
Inkheart
Inkspell
Inkdeath

Runemarks by Joanne Harris /

Witch and Wizard by James Patterson ++
The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester
Love Aubrey by Suzanne LaFleur
The Toy Maker by Jeremy De Quidt

The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind is great, 11 books and a Spin off book – Debt of Bones

Wizards First Rule
Stone of Tears
Blood of the Fold
Temple of the Winds
Soul of the Fire
Faith of the Fallen
The Pillars of Creation
Naked Empire
Chainfire
Phantom
Confessor

The Gunslinger
The Drawing of the Three
The Wastelands
Wizard and Glass
Wolves of Calla
Song of Suzanna
The Dark Tower

Dresden files by Jim Butcher

The Elenium by David Eddings
Everlost series
The Maze Runner
Ender’s Game
The House of the Scorpion
The Dragons of Pern
The Magic Study trilogy by Maria V Snyder
The Hunger Games series By Suzanne Collins
The Blade Itself

Richard Adams’ Watership Down
Brian Jacques’ Redwall Books
The Warrior Heir, The Wizard Heir, The Dragon Heir
Anything by Terry Pratchett (but esp. The Wee Free Men)
Kristin Cashore’s Graceling and Fire
The Cry of the Icemark
Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games (more sci-fi/dystopia than high fantasy)
Books by Juliet Marillier (esp. Sevenwaters Series)
Patricia McKillip’s Alphabet of Thorn, Od Magic, Solstice Wood
Maria Snyder’s Poison Study
Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments Series
Christopher Paolini’s Inheritance Cycle
George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire
Books by Tamora Pierce
Otherwise, classic fantasy by JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, Lewis Carroll, etc. is always good.

Jack Whyte’s Camulod Chronicles
1. The Skystone
2. The Singing Sword
3. The Eagles’ Brood
4. The Saxon Shore
5. Uther
6. The Sorcerer Part 1: The Fort at River’s Bend
7. The Sorcerer Part 2: Metamorphosis
8. Clothar the Frank
9. The Eagle

The Mortal Instruments-City of bones, city of ashes and city of glass by casssandra clare.
39 clues by: Rick riordan and various other authors..i think gordan korman to.