Greetings fellow readers! I hope that wherever you are, you're getting enough rain, enough rest, and enough of all the good things life has to offer. I'm getting enough overdue news I'm about to burst!

First, my 2019 Jim Baen winner, "Sample Return" has sold to XB-1. This was a fun story about "fishing" metallic hydrogen from the depths of the Jovian atmosphere.

Next, I flew to Virginnia to attend the International Space Development Conference, where I was honored for two consecutive wins in the annual Jim Baen memorial short story contest (the previous two years' award ceremonies having been deferred due to pandemic.

The conference wasn't as big as in previous years, owing to ongoing pandemic fallout, but the mood was decidedly more upbeat and reflected the rapid pace of space progress in recent years. 

I had a blast learning about the latest breakthroughs in planetary and materials science, and about the rather advanced calculations that show that space tethers on Earth are nearing engineering feasibility. I also learned from the former head of science for NASA that we now know to a high degree of confidence how to convert Mars into a planet on which humans can walk around on the surface with out a spacesuit (all we need is a few trillion dollars and a few thousand years).

And since I was in the area, the Smithsonian Air and Space museum being closed all year for renovations, I visited the Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy center outside Dulles where I immediately ran smack into the one thing I've always wanted to see in the Washington museum--the Bell X-1 rocket plane, the actual plane that first broke the sound barrier in controlled flight under Chuck Yeager's capable guidance. Very, very cool, and I got to see it up close and personal, not hanging from the rafters like in D.C.

And as they say, WAIT, THERE'S MORE! While at the conference, I had dinner with the funny, brilliant, and dear Chuck Gammon, and met with the publisher of Baen Books to finalize negotiations for...wait for it...

This project has been a long time coming. Originally inspired by a chat with an instructor at the Air Force Staff and Command college at the last ISDC I attended in 2018, it took new life in 2020 when the Space Force was formally created and started making announcements that were met with everything from derision to laughter. Well it's no joke folks, and it certainly wasn't Donald Trump's idea. The Space Force is actually an intelligent, bipartisan answer to very real concerns, and has roots deeper and a mission more important than most Americans know. 

Real Stories of the U.S. Space Force will be an anthology of science fiction stories and fact articles illustrating the importance and missions of the new service branch and dispelling misconceptions about it. We've already signed on some impressive contributors, and I can't wait to get it out to you early next year. 

Until next time...