NERD HEROES – Ryan MacDonald

Today I am kicking off my series on NERD HEROES. Us nerds have many heroes, hundreds of them, we just don’t really talk about them enough. You don’t have to be cool to be awesome and many of our nerd heroes will never ever be described as cool.

My first Hero isn’t some eminent scientist, he’s not a world leader in anything, he isn’t rich or famous. He is ordinary. But one day Ryan MacDonald could possibly be a household name like Neil Armstrong or Yuri Gagarin!

Ryan is An Astrophysics PhD student at Cambridge in the UK who is researching exoplanets. He is nerdy, has the classic jam-jar glasses, seems a little awkward from his videos, and has a youtube channel with complex videos about orbital dynamics on it and one day ….… he might just live on Mars.

Ryan is one of the “Mars 100”, the 100 final candidates picked by Mars One, a Dutch company that is planning a one-way Mars mission to establish a colony on the Red Planet. Yes, one-way. initially everyone thought they were bonkers but as time rolls on and they chip away slowly at this enormous goal some (me included) are beginning to believe that they might just do it, it’s just a matter of a few billion dollars and a final selection process between Ryan and Mars. Regardless of whether Mars One gets to Mars or even launches a probe the whole thing is fascinating, made even more exciting by Elon Musk’s recent announcement of how SpaceX intend to get to Mars in the next few decades.

Ryan’s Martian Colonist YouTube channel is great fun and his are the most comprehensive updates on the Mars One project I can find, I have been following him for a while. I honestly look forwards to hearing about the mission’s progress and also to hear his often strange asides about space exploration and the science of astrophysics.

Regardless of whether Mars One will actually happen Ryan is a nerd hero. Just watch some of his videos and you’ll see his infectious enthusiasm for the Mars One project and space exploration in general and will come to appreciate his true SUPER-NERD status. Teachers – he gives a lot of talks and video links in to classrooms all over the world about his planned trip to Mars.

For those of you who want to hear from the man himself here are links to Ryan’s Youtube, Facebook, and Twitter.

Ryan MacDonald I salute you!

A true Nerd Hero!

NERD HEROES

<A barely audible creaking of laptop hinges, a mechanical rattling as cobwebs are wiped form the keyboard of the blogging computer, a small fluttering of moths arise disturbed form their gloomy forgotten hiding place, the feeble dusty glow from the screen illuminates an old familiar pair of glasses once again. Ancient long lost passwords are repeatedly failed and eventually reset and re-verified and …. oh for God’s sake just let me in …. aaaaaaaah…. yes. I’m in! It’s Aliiiiive! The Blog is Aliiiiive!>

Now, let’s begin … again…….

Society bombards us with sporting heroes and music stars. Some celebrities are celebrities for … well… being celebrities, what exactly is it that the Kardashians do?

It’s time we fought back. We need to spread the word about the massive multitude of nerd heroes out in the world. Not hipster-nerds, “I’m cool because I like nerds”, Big Bang Theory celeb nerds. We need to talk about real heroes; people who are nerdy, unashamedly so, and do cool things, very cool things. As I have discussed before, we nerds are taking over the earth. Let’s celebrate it.

As a starting point for my new world order I plan a little series of posts on Nerd Heroes. People who may not actually be that famous that I have stumbled across but who are doing very cool things.

The first one is underway and will be up soon. If you think  of anyone to add, or fancy writing one yourself – send me a line.

Keep nerdy!