Nathan Bergey and I sat down at a busy restaurant in downtown Portland, Oregon to meet, eat and discuss his unique invention - the International Space Station lamp, that notifies you when the ISS is passing overhead in the sky. As we were winding down our conversation that covered science policy, NASA, interesting people on Twitter, and the future of science funding, I realized what an inspiring person Nathan is. Mainly I admire him simply for following through on his own intuition and ideas.

After settling in Portland, Nathan was infected by the start-up culture here and was motivated to reshape his situation a bit. Enough at least to pursue his best ideas, passion for space research, and his goal of "never being the smartest guy in the room". He had the privilege of getting to work behind the scenes at NASA for a winter and soon after the ISS Lamp idea came to him.

You can read that full story here: http://mechanicalintegrator.com/2011/iss-notify/

When I first heard about the ISS Lamp, I was charmed by its cleverness and thought how effective it could be at helping us all remember that important science is going on around us constantly, even if it's out of sight.

I also liked the greater goals and opportunities that this project represents. We need tangible, and fun ways to connect our intellectual selves. Sharing a passion for the ISS is one thing but having a desktop gadget in the office, at the front of the classroom, or in the house is a conversation starter. It helps us relate to where the money goes, the goals of exploration, or even how to build things ourselves and why that would be important. Too often we under estimate the power of our own ideas and don't give them the chance to live and breathe, and be appreciated by others.

The ISS-Notify idea was a very successful Kickstarter project with close to $20K in funding, extending well past Nathan's goal of $6K. "Kickstarter has been a huge success", said Nathan, "Before I got the project up on Kickstarter.com the number one question I was asked was, "Where can I get one". Nathan holds a strong belief in Open Science and so he has also posted all the details about the ISS Notify in the article above.

ISS Lamp from Nathan Bergey on Vimeo.

Finally I wanted to plug Nathan's other favorite project, the Portland State Aerospace Society, (http://psas.pdx.edu). Check out the latest details of a new launch that takes place on July 31st, just a few days away.

Congratulations to Nathan on the ISS-Notify being born and now demanded. I can't wait to get my very own, that I secured with a $85 kickstarter donation. Get building!

Find him on twitter @natronics or at http://mechanicalintegrator.com