OK, it's been quite some little time since I turned on the TV to see what would happen. Possibly since the election. Part of that is that we had lousy reception, so when I would have watched a few awards shows to see who won, it seemed easier to get the info from the web.
Anyway, do y'all remember wanting to be astronauts, or even wanting to be passengers on space ships? All I have to say is that I still think that leaving the earth requires uncommon bravery, and I think it will be a generation or two before it becomes routine. I have no personal bravery myself; I would like to just take a moment to publicly admire people who do.
Heck, I'm eating my liver just watching.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.
It’s been over eight months since I last watched television (I don’t really even have one now: it’s just hooked up to the DVD player, and gets wheeled out of the closet on a little cart when we want to watch a movie). But at a rest stop on the PA Turnpike on Sunday, there was a TV tuned to “NASA TV”. They were alternating between live footage of the earth from space and live footage of the completely empty control room at Kennedy, with occasional announcements that the astronauts would wake up in an hour. Then there was a brief interview, by a NASA TV correspondent of a NASA engineer. This guy reads the monitors for some element of take-off, and he was hired two years ago, so while he talked a lot about his duties, I got the impression he’d only actually done them once, a couple weeks ago. That was weird to think about.
Anyhow, NASA TV is excruciatingly dull when the astronauts are asleep. But I’m sure it’s neato at other times, and I’m sure what NASA coverage there is on regular television must be just the highlights, which still seem exciting to me but only in a very distant, not-so-relevant sort of way.