Real World Science

The original idea was to have a rundown old space ship, called Tranquility, wondering the Solar System that ran an illegal gambling casino. When I needed a cosmic event to cause a crisis for the crew, I needed bigger brains than mine to make sure it could happen.
The first phone call was to the Hayden Planetarium in New York. It turned out my idea couldn't happen, but with enthusiastic assistance from them, I soon had a new story to write and an even better crisis to deal with.
Being what I like to call an armchair science buff, I keep up with the latest science shows and major events taking place in space. So when I heard The Planetary Society was doing real tests of in Earth's orbit of solar sails, which use the sun's light to move the craft, I wanted to use that technology in my novel. When I called to ask for help, they couldn't have been more gracious with their time and information. When I visited the headquarters in Pasadena, CA, I even got a tour of Bill Nye's office, who is the CEO of TPS.
There are many such stories of people and science institutions helping me make my science be as accurate as possible, which I will go into detail later. The reason I did all this work was that if someone reading my novel was knowledgeable in the science I was writing about would see that I had done the research and fellow armchair science fans would enjoy my story.