James M Essig

I have been a science author and interstellar propulsion researcher for about 5 years now. I became really hooked on the interstellar travel theme after responding to a thread on Paul Gilster's Tau Zero Centauri Dreams website about 5 years ago and received a very warm welcome from Paul. At that time, I knew I was destined to become seriously involved in this exciting field of research.

My love of interstellar travel had its genesis in my childhood. Through most of my elementary school age years, I was a shy kid but one who was far from the stereotypical reserved nerdy geek. My gradeschool report cards where generally good but where far from the straight A cards that the academically brilliant students would receive. I had a very personal dream, however, that motivated me to get through the often booring school days. This dream is that for an unbounded future of human interstellar space-flight.

My infatuation with manned space exploration began early in gradeschool, fueled by the Apollo Space Program and lunar landings and the promise of manned missions to distant planets in the not-so-distant future. It seemed as though by the 1980s, we would definitely be sending humans on Martian exploratory missions. My interest in manned space travel waned a bit during the late 1970s through the mid-1990s, but picked up again after I had read a book on real world potential interstellar travel methods based mainly on known and well established physics.

Before embarking on a new career as a free-lance starship propulsion researcher and science writer, I worked as an inventor. With my brother, John, we co-invented and obtained numerous U.S. patents, several dealing with various forms of resource harnessing apparatus. We had filed so many applications which included international filings that we spent ourselves silly on legal services. My brother Mike would often become fustrated with John and I expressing his opinion that we were living in some sort of dream land with so many filings. John and I had some running jokes regarding our contemplation of hanging a large sign from our residence including the words, "Patent Depo", or "Essig Patent Works" right before my brother Mike would visit.

However, with such serious but small scale research and development efforts, I had developed a renewed appreciation for the power of the Sun, and by corollary, the tremendous power of the cosmos including the cosmic energy source of nuclear fusion, the power that literally runs the stars.

And speaking of nuclear energy, I grew up while my father was serving in the nuclear Navy as an MIT minted PhD in nuclear engineering who graduated at the very top of his class. My dad worked as an inspector at the Nuclear Power Training Unit that used to be located in or near Windsor Locks, Connecticut within the U.S.. This was the S-1C Reactor at the Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory for submarine propulsion systems that operated from 1963-1993. He then went on to work for the Naval Reactors Division of Naval Sea Systems Command and worked on nuclear propulsion system research and development and maintenance for the U.S. Navy, first as a career Navy Officer, and then as a civilian, Department of Energy/Department of Defense employee. His service imbued me with a deep appreciation for the awesome power of nuclear energy that persists to this day.

Despite my deceased (as of January 2, 2006) father's academic brilliance, I was a mere average student throughout grade school and into my early college years. I was too buzy reading books on various paranormal subjects and delved into Eastern Mysticism as a teenager. As a young adult, I became caught up in the Fundamentalist End Times craze that was prevalent during the hieght of the Cold War in the early to mid-1980s. I did not really get serious about my college work until the second half of my undergraduate years. I received my B.S. in physics from George Mason University, and went on to complete some graduate level physics and math classes afterword.

Oddly enough, it was my father's work in research and development at the tip of the nuclear spear that led me to an interest in interstellar travel. I knew in my teenage years that nuclear and sub-nuclear physics applications had ramifications for a bold future era of manned interstellar travel.

The readers of my books will understands my writing attitudes and temperaments and are aware of my high regard for applications of nuclear, sub-nuclear, and high energy physics research and/or development. I am especially interested in its applications for manned star travel that are so expansive that one might instead almost refer to the conjectural techniques as astral travel or travel among the metaphorical astral planes.

With the vestages of the Cold War tensions with the now disbanded Soviet Union largely behind us and the Russian Federation's cooperation to ferry astronauts back and forth from the International Space Station, I now only want the U.S. to cooperate with our former Cold War adversary. With the help of Russia, China, the EU, and the other noble nations of Planet Earth, we can and should put more effort into manned deep space exploration, a process that can lead us to the stars.

To this end, I am going to renew my appreciation for creation by purchasing a telescope (≈ $1,000.00 dollar range) this year as a Christmas present to myself and start having some real midnight fun. I will dream the dreams that can and will come.