Given I'm a mad scientist building a satellite in my basement, who are my heroes? Are they Carl Sagan, astronomer populist extraordinaire? Neil Tyson, a dynamic yet media-saavy heir to Sagan? Newton, inventor of the apple?
If I had to pick 3, I'd say Fiorella Terenzi, Tony Zuppero, and Edward Stratemeyer.
Zuppero got some noise last year when his free ebook To Inhabit the Solar System got mention in El Register. Zuppero is a mad inventor's mad inventor-- an Aspie with dreams of exploring the solar system in rockets who gets dragged into the US crazy weapons programs.
Terenzi, ah, you can look her up on Wikipedia but basically, how many astronomers not only did early work in sonification, but get to sing on a Thomas Dolby album?
And Stratemeyer, I just learned about through the best way to learn anything-- sarcastic web comics. If you like sci-fi/comics/supreme court crossovers, you'll be enlightened.
Alex
Every Tuesday here at The Satellite Diaries , Fridays at the Daytime Astronomer
