Liftoff

 NASA sent Americans into space again. It is entirely possible that you missed this, since it was also the weekend when COVID-19 infections set off alarms across the country, the soon-to-be-ex-president remained transfixed by his delusions of winning an election decided a week earlier, and of course there was The People's Choice Awards.

I credit my son with the tenacity to battle back the rest of this "news" and bring Space X's mission to the International Space Station to the fore. On Sunday evening, four astronauts made their trip into space as the world below them continued to try and sort themselves out. It was my son, a fan of machines and speed that helped put the launch on our big screen TV where we could watch as the crew that had waited a day for optimal weather conditions made good on their attempt to put America back in the space race.

Twinges of nostalgia ran through me as I recalled all those Saturn V liftoffs, and the Space Shuttle with its triumphs and tragedies. I recalled Apollo missions that brought us to the brink of a new tomorrow, and how the first shuttle was named for the Starship Enterprise. And then, after two bangs, the manned space business in America ended with a whimper. All those voices that insisted that our tax dollars were better spent fixing things here on earth finally won out. We ended up having to hitchhike with Russia when we wanted people to go up there. Way up there. 

Sunday brought all that excitement back, to our living room anyway. Three generations, my wife's mother, my wife and my son, watched with me as the capsule named Resilience sped into the darkened sky. Each throttle down and nominal check brought applause from the mission control team. And from the family watching from Oakland.

My son set a degree of closeness to the crew as he mentioned that like him, the pilot of the mission was a Cal-Poly grad. While going through the seemingly endless checks and cross-checks of systems, Victor Glover Jr. paused to say, "And hey guys - it's beautiful up here." This brought my son to tears. Which in turn made me well up, as well as bringing back a scene from the movie Contact, in which Jodie Foster is sent through time and space and quietly laments, "They should have sent a poet." 

Well, they haven't. Yet. But now that NASA and Space X are flying again, it's only a matter of time.