Friday, June 27, 2008

"in the shadow of the moon"

Hi. It's apparently all space stuff all the time around here for now.

We finished watching the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon, which was wonderful. I have decided that John Young is about the coolest cucumber ever. (He's the astronaut who said he was on the moon when he heard the shuttle program was approved and who said it like he was at the grocery store or something.) He did a mission to the moon with Eugene Cernan who said that when they had liftoff, the flight surgeon said that Cernan's heartrate was about 130. But Young's was around 70. Man. "Just going to the moon on top of this rocket, but it's no big deal or anything."

And I just went to read his Wikipedia entry and I think I love him even more. He's flown four classes of spacecraft, walked on the moon, set a lunar rover speed record (now there's a rarified category), and was on the maiden shuttle voyage. But do you know what sealed the deal of my love? The man smuggled a corned beef sandwich on a Gemini flight. (For which it says he was "reprimanded." Like I'm sure that upset him!) Also, even though he's almost 80 and retired several years ago, he still attends weekly astronaut meetings.

Love.

No comments: