Shuttle

Today we watched the space shuttle Discovery take off---live, but via computer. I still remember sitting in class watching the first one take off (or maybe not the first one---the teachers might have worried that something would go wrong). The whole school stopped, there were cheers, and everyone wanted to be an astronaut. I'm still not sure where I watched it---there almost certainly weren't enough TVs to go around, but the gym doesn't sound feasible. Probably we went down the hall to watch with another class.

I remember when Challenger was destroyed: launches were routine enough that school didn't stop for them, but exciting enough that they still put TVs in the hall for us all to see. I was near the home ec classroom, and I remember talking to my sewing teacher, although I'm not sure I understood what was going on.

Today as we were watching, I wondered what kind of space flight my kids would live to see. Luke watched with glowing eyes: "It's taking off!" The girls were scared and excited and bored, all three at the same time. They liked the pictures taken from the shuttle: "What's that?" Ella asked, pointing at the Earth. I did want to see it from Florida, but I had several friends who went down to watch and were disappointed, so I gave up the idea as too logistically difficult. One of the science sites I've visited pointed out that there are actually commercial rockets going up much more frequently---maybe we'll see one of those.

And maybe Luke will get to be in a space ship some time. We can always dream. =)