Definitely too much sharing

Posting whatever's on my mind this morning to push down that truly tasteless post from yesterday. Sorry 'bout that. I'm going to call it post traumatic stress syndrome or my weird pain-induced reaction to what feels like a sunburned rear end. Work for you all?

There were live shots from the shuttle this morning on CNN. Did you know that mission control wakes the astronauts up with music? Today it was "Good Morning, Sunshine" by the Beatles. Now there's a great job. Pick the music to wake up people in space.

Neil Armstrong was on 60 Minutes the other night, and he was explaining why the space program is so important. I'm glad I watched him, because based on the images and schedule for today, the shuttle astronauts are. . .moving things around. It really seems that NASA needs a better publicist. Or I need to start getting the dead tree paper again to read about what they're doing. (NASA's website about current and upcoming projects is pretty fascinating, though. Check it out.)

Our apathy as a nation toward space travel is something I hadn't recognized until the launch on Tuesday. One of the 4 thousand tvs at Capitol Lounge was tuned to the launch, and I nudged my friend and said, "Oooh! The Shuttle is launching!" His response: "So? Those things are always going up." Huffy Megarita response: "Um, no. The last one blew up and killed everyone on it." His response: "Well, maybe the 4th of July is not the right day to try and send up another one." Callous? Oh yes. Hilarious and apt? Sadly, yes.

Bush has been talking about going back to the moon and then on to Mars. I love the pictures from the Mars Rover--I had the panoramic views that were in several magazines in my cubicle for a long time. But there needs to be a pitch for why we need a space program. Actually, scratch that. It might be a pitch for why the shuttle is the way to go rather than another form of transportation. They seem like white elephants these days. We can all remember both the first launch of the shuttle program as well as the Challenger disaster, but they're still flying the same design. (The website explains that no other spacecraft has such "robust capacity." So it's got a big trunk. For carrying stuff. Got it.) I imagine it's better to fly what you've got, but maybe a new look and a new plan is called for. Something to revitalize the space program. Neil Armstrong's complete belief that space exploration is imperative sold me. I just wish he was still working for NASA!