Letter from Holly (AKA “NASA Girl”)

Howdy!

Hopefully you remember meeting me at AggieCon this past weekend in College Station. It was such an honor to meet you and be able to chat about the space industry and everything. I especially enjoyed the panel about “The Future of Pern” — your tangents always prove to be full of great stories. As soon as I have a spare moment, you can bet I will read “Dragon’s Kin”. Somewhere along the line, although the engineering courses here at A&M tend to take over my life, I intend to reread the Pern series in chronological order (opposed to publication order).

I have also been fortunate to find some of “romantic novels” (as the internet calls them: the non-Pern, non-science fiction ones) your mother has written, including those published as “Three Women” and “Stitch in Snow.” I am eager to complete my collection.

Now, down to business: I most certainly am interested in the Lunar Module Landing Guides!!!

Thank you again for all of the captivating conversations, and I wish you well in the editing of “Dragonsblood.”

Sincerely,
Holly

Holly,

I’ll be most delighted in sending you my Lunar Module Pilot Study Guides. I’m glad to find someone who is intrigued by them. They need a good home — and it sounds like you’ll give that to them!

Don’t forget to check out scaled.com to learn about Burt Rutan’s efforts to win the X-prize (he’s backed by Paul Allen).

Also, when you get to play with orbital mechanics, let me know. Orbital rendezvous represent some of the most enjoyably squirelly mathematics I’ve ever had the pleasure to encounter.

And if you haven’t yet run the numbers, don’t forget to try playing with super-high specific impulse propellants — say, anti-matter/matter heated hydrogen (well, plasma) with an Isp of 300,000 — and note how much fuel you still need to make a least-time flight from Earth to Jupiter (for example). [I’ve done this, so I know.]

I’m sorry we didn’t have more time to talk. If I get back to Aggiecon again, I’ll dust off my brains and ask to do a couple of panels on space exploration.

Cheers,
Todd

P.S.: I’ll send you an email when I’ve got the LM Study Guides in the mail.