I stopped everything to watch the
Discovery launch today. I had to.
I was a space baby.
It's my father's fault. He enlisted in the air force in the early 60's, hoping, I think, to go into pilot training and the new, evocative career choice: "Astronaut" -- a sailor into the stars.
Instead, an aptitude test landed him squarely in another new field--Artificial Intelligence, and he set out on a life long career of computer programming and software design. But he never lost his love for the stars. As I grew up I learned on his knee the names of heroes: John Glenn, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong. At one point I could rattle off astronaut names and flight missions the way some kids recite dinosaurs or baseball stars.
My baby sister was born on July 16, 1969, but that was almost a peripheral event in my young life to the launch, landing, and moonwalk of Apollo 11. "You have a little sister" and "The Eagle has landed" are forever linked in my memory. And the time span and tension of the crisis for Apollo 13 is as vivid in my mind as if a family member had been in danger.
It seemed like every family vacation we took was to the Smithsonian, and it was years before I figured out there were other things to see on the Mall besides the National Air and Space Museum. I would be a fully grown adult before I got to see the Hope Diamond; but in elementary school I could have guided you to the Apollo 11 command module on the museum floor plan and I could've hummed you the theme music for the mini-movie, "To Fly." Did I mention that Star Trek was my favorite TV show?
My dad did go on to get his private pilot's license and fulfill that particular life-long dream, but I think as much as he loved his kids, one part of him was always disappointed that none of us wanted to pursue a career that might take us to outer space.
But he did leave us all with an incredible love and respect for the true pioneers of our time.
I had only been teaching two years when NASA announced its "Teacher in Space" program, so I wasn't eligible to apply, but like many teachers I was honored and touched and excited to watch Christa McAuliffe's journey. We were in the middle of January Regents Exams in New York when someone burst into the teacher's lounge to say, "The space shuttle just blew up." As soon as school was out, I headed straight to my dad's side, where he sat, all day, grieving, watching the coverage. I have seen that man cry two times in my life--once, when my grandmother died, and that day, watching those twin trails of smoke against the impossibly blue sky.
Does space travel really give us anything worthwhile? Sometimes I hear fellow progressives talk about the huge amount of money that's spent, and weigh it against hungry children, out of work Americans, folks without healthcare. I'm sure others can list out the many concrete ways that space travel has benefited humanity, but I do think there is something intrinsic in our need to explore. It's a survival instinct, like early cultures wanting to find out what was on the other side of the island, or across the ocean. We have a need to find the boundaries of our existence.
So today I'm raising my own space babies. Maybe it's because their grandpa gave them every toy related to outer space, or maybe it's something genetic, but both of my children also share a fascination with science and space travel. When my son was a baby, he didn't sleep with a teddy bear; instead, he'd curl up in bed clutching a giant children's book about the planets. Maybe one of my kids will follow their grandfather's dream, but even if they don't, I hope they will always look with the mixture of awe and respect that I saw on their faces today, as we watched the world look up and see the space shuttle return to outer space.
Godspeed, Discovery.