The Space Review: The poor man's space program: About 100 amateurs in a dozen groups across the United States are designing and launching “near spacecraft”. These groups do not let the high cost of spacecraft construction and launch deter them. Instead, by using off-the-shelf components and simple machining techniques, these amateurs operate their own space program. Altitudes in excess of 30 kilometers are possible on these amateur near-space flights. While the costs of materials and launch are kept low, the results returned are priceless. Where else can one return images of the inky blackness of space and the curvature of the Earth’s horizon at a thousandth the cost of launching a comparable satellite into Earth orbit?
NEWS : "The 40-year-old Mr. Everett was raised in McLean, Va., with his sister Elizabeth, mother Nancy and father Hugh Everett III, a quantum physicist who in 1957 proposed a formal theory of parallel universes known as 'The Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.' 'Everett's work has boggled minds inside and outside physics for more than four decades,' reported Scientific American in last month's issue.
Mr. Everett said his brilliant father wasn't communicative at home. When I asked him what the conversation was like around the breakfast table, he replied, 'There wasn't any.'
'Physicists and geniuses don't always make great family men. I lived with him for 18 years and I learned more about him from the Internet.'
Mr. Everett's family was a heartrending source of inspiration for his most notable work, the 1998 album 'Electro-Shock Blues' (DreamWorks), written after his sister committed suicide and h...
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