How I came to love Space Travel

So my son Brandon at MIT once called me on the phone and asked:
"Dad i need to write a paper up here explaining how i fell in love with Space Travel?"

Of course i had to laugh. And then i began to list some events in Brandon's childhood.

1. First when you were little, we used to go to Cocoa Beach for our summer vacations (Holiday on the beach where kids stayed and eat for free...$39 a night)

and to kill time we would visit the Kennedy Space Center with its museum and movies and old space ships and such.

2. One of my favorite movies was 2001 Space Odyssey and we watched it together about 10 or 12 times. It just happened that in that time period movies like The Right Stuff and Armageddon also came out at the movie theater. And of course all the Star Trek and Star War movies. Poor Brandon did NOT have a chance.

3. There was an astronaut that visited Berkeley's lower division and we had a picture of you and this man hanging in your wall. Also hanging on your wall was a BIG picture of the space shuttle taking off.

4. We went once at 3 am to see the Space shuttle take off at 6 am in the morning. The stream of smoke broke up the sun rise and there were more colors in the sky than imaginable. We felt and heard the ROAR of the engines.

5. You built and launched rockets with uncle cookie in science camp for about 3 or 4 years.

6. we even flew those model airplanes with strings attached that you have to go around in a circle.

7. we visited Uncle Mel in Boston and he flew his R/C planes for us. And then i bought you a R/C plane that you built and Uncle Mel flew down here on spring break and taught you how to fly the thing. You two guys were in heaven.

8. we also stopped at Kitty Hawk, NC one time on the way from Florida to DC. And we visited the Wright Brothers museum and saw the plane they flew and the sand dunes they used to launch their plane. You even strapped a BIG kite to your back and flew a little off the sand dune.

9. one of my ex-students took you up in her plane over St Pete, Florida.

10. we went to Lakeland, Florida for the Fly and Fun festival several times. Walked around the many little airplanes there and even saw them make a wing from scratch.

11. we also went to several Air Shows at McDill Airforce Base, here in Tampa.

12. the final blow was the computer simulators that came along in the 1990's.

So you ask, how did you fall in love with air travel ? You had no chance, you were destine for it.

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