I'm pretty sure grades will be great this semester : A- or A in Rocket Propulsion depending on how the final went and definitely an A in electric propulsion - think I found my calling there. I have 104% currently (In a GRADUATE class!) we got a 7% extra credit project to do on solar cells (which I pwned) and the final is Wednesday but I only have to get like a 60% to keep my A, so it's a lock.
Second piece of great news is that I secured an independent study program here on campus over the summer with this extremely accomplished elder professor in the Nuclear Engineering Dept. It actually came out of a really fruitful discussion about the possibility of me pursuing a PhD in his department under his direction after I graduate with my Masters in December. It sounds like if the department gets its Air Force research funding in July or November, he's interested in having me for sure, but I have to decide if I want it. I'm going to put in some job applications as well and see if anything really fantastic jumps out at me. I have always wanted to stay on for a PhD and the job/salary prospects DO increase but you haver to sort of have to look at the cost/benefit analysis and if a really great job that sounds fun and has a great salary is offered, I might bow out and take it. Oh, the research I'm doing this summer and the research I'd be doing on my PhD are the same topic - something called a Helicon IEC thruster that his lab is working on. It's sort of a stepping stone to an electric/nuclear fusion hybrid thruster but the real thing is probably... 10 years away at best, 50 at worst. For those of you who keep up on your breakthrough propulsion projects, if you've heard of "VASIMIR" it's a similar technology, but VASIMIR has some differences. It is very well developed because Chang-Diaz, the former astronaut who's been pushing it for the last 20 years, and who founded Ad Astra, is extremely wealthy and has been dumping cash into it. It's a promising technology but it's also very complex and our Helicon IEC is simpler, so if we can work out the plasma physics, it could be a superior design, we don't know yet.
Aaaand the third piece of good news, I am massively stronger than I've ever been. Been becoming kind of an obsessed gym rat, but if you ask me I don't look like a nasty veiny bodybuilder because frankly my frame can't hold it. I am hovering at about 141-143 lbs, pushing 145 on my heaviest days. On my leanest eating days I look like a freak out of P90X
, on my heavier days I look more like Gerard Butler minus some abdominal definition. I'd be surprised, honestly, if I ever hit 150 no matter how much I eat or lift. I'm taking protein and some other stuff, watching it carefully though. But at that weight, 141-143, I'm leg pressing about 480, benching about 210, decline bench 230, cable curling 195, power cleaning 125. Actually did 30 overhand pullups today, and the Marine Corps max that maybe 15% of candidates could manage was 20. And I'm still running, cycling or hitting the stairmaster 2-3 times a week to avoid becoming a big hulking, slow, meathead type. So I'm very happy about how that's going!
