When I graduated from MIT with a Bachelor of Science in physics in 1978, the two things that most excited me were experimental high energy physics, and space travel. I had grown up with the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs, reading Willy Ley, flying model rockets of my own, and dreaming of building a liquid fuel engine with my next door neighbor. I had also grown up next to the Fermilab particle accelerator, and had been a summer student there. In the end I had to make a choice, which was high energy physics, and have worked at Fermilab, the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and the CERN lab in Europe. But in my spare time, I kept on reading and studying rocketry, and could probably write a few textbook chapters by now. When the opportunity arose to be the faculty advisor for the UBC Rocket student engineering team, I jumped at the chance. It’s a pleasure to work with the young men and women from all backgrounds, from all over the world (UBC has the most diverse student body imaginable). The UBC Rocket team had actually already decided on their own to build a Karman Line liquid fuel rocket over a year before the Base 11 Space Challenge was announced, and they are incredibly enthusiastic about it!