Tag: US Navy

Jim Beall

April 2, 2026 /

Jim Beall (BS-Math, MBA, PE) has been a nuclear engineer for fifty years, beginning as a nuclear engineering officer in the US Navy. Civilian experience includes design, construction, inspection, enforcement, and assessment with a nuclear utility, an architect engineering firm, and the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (USNRC). Assignments included on-site health physics support, piping design stress analyses, reactor licensing, reactor startup testing (Canadian Point Lepreau heavy water reactor), research reactor inspections, and an assist mission to the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine in Kiev. USNRC positions included reactor site construction senior resident inspector (SRI), reactor operations SRI, inspection team leader, safety analyst, senior enforcement specialist, and reactor policy assistant to three different Presidential-appointed USNRC Commissioners while earning the agency’s Meritorious and Distinguished Service awards.

Duties of those policy-level posts included research into alternative and speculative energy sources, as well as energy forecasts and transmission technologies. Energy sources included coal, oil, hydro, geothermal, tidal, solar, wind, fracking, space-based, heavy water reactors, breeder reactors, fusion, and even anti-matter.

Publications:

  • Interstellar Research Group:
  • “Water, Water, Everywhere, but Which Drops Can We Drink?”

Journal of the British Interplanetary Society (JBIS):

  • “Ecological Engineering Considerations for ISU’s Worldship Project” (Coauthor)

Elsevier:

  • “Interstellar Travel: Purpose and Motivations” (Coauthor)

Baen Books:

  • “Our Worldship Broke!”
  • “Case Studies in Handwavium”
  • “From Corvus to Keyhole — Shipyards: Past, Present, and Science Fiction”
  • “Radium Girls of Science and Science Fiction”
  • “Grid Wars: Innovation, Feuds, Rivalry, and Revenge in the Never-ending Battle to Electrify America and the Planet”
  • “Atomic Follies”
  • “Warships of Sea and Space – Part 1”
  • “Warships of Sea and Space – Part 2”
  • “Recycling: From Stars to Starships”
  • “Borders: From the First Sumerians to the Last Starfighter”
  • “Artificial Intelligence: Myth, Fiction, and Future”

Les Carter

April 1, 2026 /

Born into a Navy family in Washington, D.C., Leslie Roy Carter lived all over the United States, as well as in Argentia, Newfoundland, while growing up.
After receiving a B.S. in Physics from the College of William and Mary, he was commissioned as an Ensign in the U.S. Navy. While serving as a naval officer, he earned an M.S.E.E. from the Naval Postgraduate School. His career as a surface line officer took him to many ports such as Pearl Harbor, Long Beach, San Diego, and Charleston, culminating in command of the Oliver Hazard Perry Class Frigate, U.S.S. Reid. He then switched to the acquisitions specialty, eventually becoming a major program manager before his retirement in 2002 with the rank of Captain.
After retiring from the Navy, he worked for ten years as a defense contractor in the Washington area and turned his attention to writing. Holding a private pilot’s license, he also serves in the Maryland Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

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