Congratulations! You have decided upon a career in aerospace. Welcome to our world. You are obviously a person of character and vision ... a dreamer, a gambler, a daredevil. You like living on the edge. Every moment must be filled with intensity and uncertainty; you are at your best when the chips are down; you do not need mundane matters like "job security" cluttering up your consciousness.

No?

Then, quickly, run for your life! The aerospace industry is not for the cowering or faint of heart. Only the creme de la creme, the epitome of life's adventurers, the committed and the should-be-committed need apply. If you have stumbled into aerospace by mistake, throw this book in the trash and don't let your coattail hit you going out the door.

Possibly the greatest research adventure ever attempted by man, the space program commands a gigantic 1% of the national budget annually. This figure is shrinking all the time, and includes manned and unmanned programs as well as pure research and development projects. That is all we're spending for space. So you won't get rich in this business. You'll be lucky if you can hang on to your job.

You will, however, be "boldly going" where many of us have gone before. Hence, this guidebook. The ghosts of secretaries past shall accompany you on your journey. There will be stories to tell and hardware to build and lessons to learn, a sojourn of fantastic possibility through uncharted realms.

In exchange for your flexibility and perseverence, you will be rewarded with a regular paycheck (if you're not RIFed*), lots of hard work (and ofttimes long hours), and the knowledge that you are participating in history, in the making of it, here and now.

Even if you're working on some totally unrelated project, every time the Shuttle flies your heart will beat fast as you watch the launch, riding it out with the crew, holding your breath until T+01:12 when that fateful first 72 seconds passes and the SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters) separate from the ET (External Tank) without exploding. (You will also learn to speak Acronyms.)

You will think about the men and women who have climbed aboard that two-kiloton bomb and said, "Launch me". You will marvel at what vision/bravery/stupidity it takes to say that. You will think about the crewmembers who have lost their lives as a result of that gamble. But the knowledge that they willingly did so for the good of the greater mission will somehow make it bearable, even noble.

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) will send back photographs of distant nebulae, star clusters and galaxies, as awesome and beautiful as the concept of space travel itself. With every new discovery, the excitement generated by exploration of our vast celestial home will mount within you. Pretty soon you'll start subscribing to astronomy magazines and other scientific publications, some of which you won't even comprehend because they're so technically complex. It won't matter. You can look at the pretty pictures and route them on to the Rhodes Scholars all around you.

You will find yourself exploring areas of the space program other than the one you're personally supporting. The DC-X experimental VTVL (Vertical-Takeoff/Vertical-Land) RLV (Reuseable Launch Vehicle) and unmanned missions like Galileo and Magellan will command your attention. One of the buttons on your television remote will be programmed to the NASA Select channel. You will become a Trekkie. You will surf the internet looking for space links and lurk around in the sci.space newsgroups. And a larger picture will begin to take shape -- a mosaic of daring, logic and honorable purpose. You will have the privilege of knowing that one of the electrons circling one of the atoms in one of the little molecules of that mosaic is you.

You will work alongside some of the weirdest, wackiest and most wonderful people in the world, and some of the most brilliant. They will teach you as much as you are willing to learn about rocket science. You will teach them a few things, as well. Sometimes you will love them to distraction; other times you will want to pinch their little heads off. They will be your joy and your pain, your heaven and your hell. But you will see yourself in each and every one of them, and through them you will learn to appreciate your own eccentricities. And if you're a diligent student of the eclectic, you might even develop some new ones.

At times the grind of it may tend to get you down ... the endless paper, the bureaucratic maze, the red tape, the RIFs. Be not disheartened -- it can always get worse! (You do see that the glass is half full, don't you?)

Funding for programs will be hard to come by, with the entire nation screaming "betterfastercheaper" and talking about the space industry being a waste of money. Even your best friends will think that all you do for a living is suck the great government teat; some will say that to your face and some won't. Family members may try to conceal your career choice from their social and business acquaintances so as to prevent being lumped into the same noncontributory category by simple association. You will stoop to watching C-Span.

All the space program requires in return is your loyalty, faith, and willingness to remain dedicated, regardless of how pitiable that may seem, to the mission at hand. So dust off the crystal ball, polish up your mind-reading skills, and buckle up for safety. The ride of your life is about to begin.