The launch of Sputnik 50 years ago and a tribute to the contributions of thousands of Georgia Tech alumni to space exploration is the cover story of the Fall edition of the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine.

Douglas Wheelock, MS AE 92, who is scheduled to be aboard the space shuttle mission set for an Oct. 23 launch, is featured on the cover of the magazine, which will be distributed Oct. 8 to all Roll Call donors.

An excerpt from "True North," the The New York Times best-seller by Bill George, IE 64, is also in the Fall magazine. The Times hails George's book as "one of the most important books on leadership to come along in years."

Other cover stories spotlight alumnus Chip Akridge and Georgia Tech faculty chair Judith Curry.

Akridge carried the principles he learned in scouting into the tough world of real estate development in Washington, D.C., and showed that nice guys can finish first.

Curry, chair of Georgia Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, was thrust into the spotlight when a paper she co-authored was published just weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. In an Alumni Magazine interview, she discusses climate change and its probable consequences.

To subscribe to the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, give to the annual fund at gtalumni.org/site/Page/RollCall/.