Did you experience the same awe that I did when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon?

Do you watch the space station fly overhead and ache to know what it is really like to
be up there?

Do you believe our children can take the human race to the stars?

Do you look at the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and think "How can there not be intelligent life out there?"

These thoughts and feelings have forced me to take on the most important project of my life.

How it will work
SkyGuy is simple in its implementation, but vast in its intended influence. It will be a massive collection of video, animation, interviews, games, e-books and teaching materials hosted online. All of it will be oriented toward astronomy and space science. The audience is kids in the 3rd grade through 8th grade.

Some of the questions I get from kids when I volunteer at the Fiske planetarium are just phenomenal, and that is the starting point for me: answering those questions. ("how many stars are there?" "how big is our galaxy?" "how can Jupiter have gravity if it is not solid?" "what would happen if you touched a black hole?" -- and so on). Kids in that age range have wide open eyes and are eager to learn.

Yet, as a nation, we fail them with the science education we give them.

I will change that.

I want to inspire these kids. I want them to feel the same awe I did when I was very young, when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. I remember lying on my front lawn, looking up at the moon, and realizing "There are people up there .... RIGHT NOW!" I knew it was possible that some day, I would be able to do the same thing.

I want to inspire the next generation of scientists, astronauts and engineers. I want to instill in them the firm belief that whatever they want to do, they *can* do it.

I've started doing the videos. I've begun networking with the science community in Boulder and have lined up interviews.

The best people are those who are able to explain things for the kid audience. But even those people who can not do that are great resources, since *I* can do the translation into kidspeak.

The ultimate goal of this project is to get me to the International Space Station. That's not a simple, selfish "I want to go there." It is actually very important. If I'm going to be telling kids that they can do whatever they want and the sky is the limit, I will need to lead by example!

Actually, the sky is too low of a limit. I intend to go above the sky :c)

I hope you will join me in this vision of the future.

SkyGuy.com will launch with a basic set of video and written content REAL SOON NOW.

-- Tom Vilot, SkyGuy!
tom@skyguy.com