SpaceShipTwo - my VIDEO coverage

I was busy last Wednesday. Not only did I live blog the unveiling of SpaceShipTwo on Wired.com, but I also reported on the event on camera. Wired posted the resulting video, produced by Randi Himelfarb, on YouTube.com last night. Click the image to link to the video.

SpaceShipTwo Unveiling - My Live Coverage at Wired.com

I'm attending the press conference at New York's Natural History Museum for the unveiling of SpaceShipTwo, Virgin's commercial spaceship. Check it out at http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/spaceshiptwo-un.html

Working It Out

When I first saw the title of this book, I read it as "The 4-Hour Work Day," and I still thought it was outrageous. But no, this entrepreneur-turned-author really does aim to show you how to work a 4-hour work week.

I'm a great believer in the power of books to change your life, and I just couldn't pass this one up. Turns out it's well-written, funny, and full of good ideas. And, yes, it has changed my life.

The book's central premise is that the 8-hour work day is an artificial construct, that there's no reason on Earth why you have to work the same schedule as everyone else.

Hell, I've known that my entire working life. I've never held a full-time job, preferring instead to pick up short-term engagements that will allow me to pursue my own goals. I started out as a temporary secretary while still in college, switched a few years later to contract writing because it allowed me to work at home, and never looked back.

Ferriss goes further than that, though. Slip away from the watchful eye of an employer, and there's no reason on Earth why you actually have to do the work yourself. Hire it out. Better still, hire it out to someone making pennies on your dollar. To someone, say, in India. In other words, outsource your work.

Well, I'm not about to outsource the writing of my magazine articles and books. But the idea intrigued me. Why not outsource whatever else I could? Case in point, I've been invited to deliver a PowerPoint presentation at the Perimeter Institute next month, complete with exciting photos and video clips.

Even as a temp, I never worked with PowerPoint much. In my previous life as an actor and playwright, I always avoided what theater folks call "tech" as much as possible. Tech goes wrong. Tech relies on techies to run those lights and sound cues. Tech costs money. So I distilled theater to its most basic elements: one man in a room in front of an audience. No props or costume changes, and only a single, straight back chair for a set.

I've taken a similar tack with my book-related talks. Until now. These guys want PowerPoint with video, and by God, they're going to get it. I gave an Indian outsourcing firm Ferriss recommends in his book a whirl. They did okay, about what you'd expect from a temp flying by the seat of his pants. I could relate.

But it still wasn't what I wanted. So I went local, hired my buddy Mark Greene at Pecos Pictures to work it out. He's a video guy. He knows this stuff. Sure, he costs more than the generalists in India, but he's worth it.

My friend and fellow writer Jeff Davis is a big believer in hiring local whenever possible. It's a way to give back to the community that supports you, he says, and it gets you better quality work. I think he's on to something there.

SpaceShipTwo coming out of the closet

Since SpaceShipOne spun through 29 rolls flying out of the atmosphere in 2004, the ship's designer, Burt Rutan, has been promising a new and improved design for his follow-on ship--one that won't shake, rattle, and roll paying passengers quite so much.

SpaceShipTwo, to be owned and operated Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, has been coming together behind closed doors, with its exact configuration a closely guarded secret.

That'll change next Wednesday when Rutan and Branson appear in a rare joint press conference at the Museum of Natural History in New York to show off some scale models.

Virgin's also debuting a new look for its branding and "livery," as they're calling it. Still based on Branson's eye, the logo, for one, will undergo a makeover.

Besides the new ship configuration, the big question on everyone's mind is how things are going for the project since last summer's fatal test stand accident that has forced a halt to development on the spaceship while an investigation grinds on.

Virgin remains upbeat, planning for test flights to begin this summer, with the first spaceflights next year, and revenue flights to begin in 2010, according to a MarketingWeek article (via RLV and Space Transport News).

It'll be interesting to see what Rutan says about that, since he has thus far steadfastly refused to hold himself and his company to any sort of schedule.

Check in here for links to my reporting on the unveiling after it takes place.

New Year, New Book

Since the release of Rocketeers last summer, I've been retooling for my next project, a book about DARPA, the Pentagon's research arm. And what a long arm it is, sponsoring technology research and development that effects our lives in ways most people can hardly imagine. The computer network you're connected to, for instance, started as a DARPA project.

Watch this space for updates on the shadowy world of military research, with an emphasis on tech that could help the rest of us. Clean, renewable energy, bionic arms, cars that drive themselves, hyperspeed jets, and more, are all part of DARPA projects. As in my last book, I'll introduce you to the engineers making it all happen and show you around their labs and workshops.

Among my resolutions: to blog several times a week. As I expand my focus to take in not just commercial space travel, but other science fiction coming true, I aim also to expand my audience beyond my core readership of space workers, entrepreneurs, and enthusiasts, but anyone else interested in how advanced technology can help solve our Earthly problems. Not to worry if want to keep tabs on the world of commercial spaceflight--I'll keep up my coverage there too.

Along the way, I'll give you a glimpse into my own R&D process, offering what I hope will be an entertaining and informative view of the working writer's life.

I hope you'll join me on this next fantastic voyage. Meantime, pick up the current Popular Science for my cover story on hpersonic aircraft. Yes, it's a DARPA-funded project that could just change the world. Around the world in four hours, anyone?