Astronaut for Hire

I've been working hard on my NASA astronaut application. I had some questions regarding the resume portion, so I emailed the NASA human resources contact, and she was very responsive and helpful. One friend has helped me edit the first draft of my resume, which is coming along nicely but could use a little more tweaking. If anyone wants to take a look at it and offer your suggestions, please contact me. Update 3/29/08: Thanks to John for reviewing my resume for me. I also hired a professional career coach to help me streamline the resume wording. It's getting there...

Virgin Galactic has unveiled the design of its new space launch system SpaceShipTwo, based on the 2004 X-PRIZE-winning SpaceShipOne. The new mothership called the WhiteKnightTwo is nearing completion and will undergo testing in summer 2008. Even better, both WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo are being designed to run on biofuel, making them more environmentally friendly. Here is a link to the Virgin Galactic press release (MS Word format) .

To share pictures and movies of my son with family, I need a reliable and easy to use site. There are many options out there, and I researched the pro's and con's of many of them in great detail. In the end, I chose phanfare for its excellent slideshows and integration of photos and video. From now on, my media home on the web is: http://shiro.phanfare.com

At 10:36pm on November 19, 2007, my wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy. We named him "Henry Hiroshi Shiro" after his great-grandfathers on both sides of the family: "Henry" (Germanic, means "home ruler") was my dad's dad name, and "Hiroshi" (Japanese, means tolerant, generous, or prosperous) is Holli's mother's dad's middle name. Little Henry was born with a weight of 7 pounds 11 ounces (3489 g) and was 21.75 inches (55.25 cm) long. He's a week old now and in perfect health.

Check out the high-definition movies and images from Japan's Kaguya (Selene) lunar explorer:

In order to have a more safe and practical car for our soon-to-arrive little one, Holli and I bought a new car this week. Our criteria were that it had to be a 4-door hatchback with excellent safety and fuel economy ratings. If money were in infinite supply, we'd buy a Toyota Prius, but since we can't afford a hybrid, we looked at conventional cars. Models we considered included the Toyota Matrix, Nissan Versa, Honda Fit, and Scion xD. The second tier cars in this category include the Suzuki Aero, Mazda3, Kia Rio or Spectra, and Chevy Aveo. The decision came down to either the Nissan Versa or Honda Fit, and we we went for the Honda Fit .

Ever since I left Washington University in 2005, I've been searching for other graduate school programs that fit my interests and time/financial limitations. For a while, I was serious about moving to France to do the 1-year ISU masters , but it would have cost too much, so I did the ISU summer program instead. There are, of course, many options out there if you're willing to move to the school and become a full time student (e.g., MIT's TPP ). I, however, need to work full time to support my family and pay the bills. Unfortunately, the programs offered by the only local university ( University of Hawaii ) don't quite fit my interests, so I resorted to looking at those offered online. By spring 2007 I had decided to enroll in a program starting with the fall 2007 semester. My main goal is to gain a degree in a space-related discipline to propel my career more towards space exploration pursuits. The constraints are that I have to study part-time as a distance s...