The starting point of this story was in 1957, with the release of Sputnik. Very young yet, practically a child in my 5 years, already able to read with ease, I saw the headlines in the newspapers about something wonderful that made something called “artificial satellite” soar higher than airplanes. A metal sphere, so shaped to be similar to natural satellites, even capable of sending beep-beep signals, something previously unknown and therefore very attractive.

Passion at first sight, until eternity, which seems to me to be closer every day…

Note: There are a few more details about this in the author’s preface (click here to read) from my book “Space Exploration – A History of Astronautics”, which is one of those available
for download on this website.

Temporarily changing the subject, at the age of eight or nine, I read an unforgettable book, “A Doctor in the Storm,” from the late Saraiva Collection. Eduardo Adami was the author, and he recounted his life as a doctor in far-off, poor corners of the interior, when he gave himself to poor people for countless nights, storms, and horse-riding mud to deliver and try to save lives that the privileged politicians have always neglected in this country.

One day, I think at some age (I don’t remember details of the story), Dr. Eduardo became ill, and had to recover from illness for a long time. And he decided to enjoy
this time to record his story, which became the book that so impressed me. Thank you, Dr. Adami, who has probably already met the good souls who are to gather upon leaving this world.

Words of a convinced agnostic.

I read, collected, cut out magazines and newspapers, asked adults, listened to radio and TV news. Then it was the time of movies in the cinema, on the VCR, on the DVD. Occasionally I attended some rare talk on the subject. All to know more about space. This passion, having its seed planted in my mind, today is an adult tree, firm and strong. Believe it or not, in the mid-1960s I even signed up for the first expected commercial flights to the moon, including my name on the list that PanAm had opened to the public.

In these six decades, alongside space issues, my days were filled with a great deal of rush, exhaustion, and intense tension. The studies and the choice of the second profession, which I was forced to do, since the first option was to be an astronaut, something impossible at the time for a Brazilian kid, still without higher education, without graduate, without being military, not being North American neither Russian nor pilot with many hours of flight.

One tiny point in favor: As a self-taught student, I became interested in learning English, which was important to my ambitious dream. I had excellent teachers and private teachers! Here’s a partial list: Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, Johnny Mathis, and even one Elvis Presley. Ah! and the unforgettable teacher Brenda Lee! I even fell in love with her.

And so I also studied and learned Italian very well, with Rita Pavone (ah !, another great passion…), Mina, Bobby Solo, Pepino di Capri, Nico Fidenco. Domenico Modugno and so many others. But my favorite language, the one I devoted the most time to learning, was undoubtedly French, taught by the most beautiful teacher in the world: Françoise Hardy, my greatest passion, I confess, to this day. Merci Beaucoup, Françoise. To be fair, she had excellent assistants, such as Adamo, Gilbert Becaud, Edith Piaf, Mireille Mathieu, Charles Aznavour.

Other factors also contributed to the aforementioned rush and exhaustion in these six decades. In addition to this interest in languages, my “free time” was filled with a bachelor’s degree in economics, an incomplete master’s degree in computer science, a postgraduate degree in higher education didactics, a working life (morning and afternoon) in countless companies. as a programmer and systems analyst, and another professional life as a university professor at night and on Saturdays.

While all this was going on, other activities contributed to a slice of my time of dedication: a marriage of thirty and a more fleeting of less than five years, and two daughters for whom I changed many diapers, used little talcum powder and stayed many nights awake. eyes glued to the thermometer or, less badly, lulling them to the tunes of the long-play Noah’s Ark. In fact a sublime pleasure, even if later partly replaced by sleepless nights wondering what was going on inside the dancing-packed nightclubs (forever Abba!), And frequented by my little daughters.

The few moments in which I could disassociate myself from trouble and seek some pleasurable sublimation were mostly accomplished by an hour or two on some road at dawn, singing loudly, in the solitude of a car cabin. Accompanied by Françoise, the Beatles, Bee Gees, and so many others whose tunes still rock my mind.

After two broken marriages, I found myself alone. Daughters grown up. No trauma, no depression, no anger, none of that. It was a matter of loneliness, of having no one to buy a new dress for, a blouse, or a bouquet of flowers to spoon with, to give me at least a little. Do you know what I did with the huge time left?

Usually, wives have an aversion to accumulating husbands, after all, ten pairs of shoes are acceptable, but ten screwdrivers are not… Considering this particularity and a number of address changes, I ended up losing a lot of the material that made up my personal mess and accumulated space since childhood.

Here I open parentheses to record my repudiation of the attitude of astronaut Neil Armstrong’s second wife: when the first human to walk on the moon died (and she knew it when she married him), Carol was of terrible awkwardness, for what I read. in the papers she discarded Armstrong’s belongings publicly, and, worse, complained of all that “shit” she was getting rid of.

Going back to my story, despite the losses, the remaining material and what was stored in my intellect still constituted, in my judgment, a treasure that needed somehow to be shown to the public. It was too much information that, processed, would yield something of quality. I slowly began to rummage and figure out how I could organize it all. Obviously I thought of a book, like those that, when I was young, made me travel through the space of my imagination. Writing, or rather expressing myself, has always been something I enjoyed doing, as it is an activity that dramatically improves the outcome of what a teacher does.

By the way, in 2011 I released my first book, a biography. With everything paid for in my own pocket, it would be a great difficulty to get the attention of publishers, until the point of winning one of them who agreed to publish the work. Someday I will make it available to the reader on this website.

Little did I know that fate would soon “give” me a lot more free time than I imagined to organize my mess.

Dear reader, the main target of my gesture of donating the material on this website is the students, to whom I dedicate this work of mine, who today are as I was when I was young, and I marveled at what I read in the books and found out what it is. the science. Things that have shaped part of my character, my personality, and have always kept my interest in learning about what is now called STEM.

Anyone who likes the books and content of this website anyway, and who can support this project, here is the humble request to make their contribution; click here to learn how.

I will tell you soon about the name of this website.