11:32AM CDT

The shuttle Endeavour is coming home. Landing is scheduled for 11:32 AM CDT at Kennedy Space Center, and I hope to be somewhere where I can watch it. Oh, what I wouldn't give to be there for that! Would really love to see a launch, but they are so hard to catch because they'll have like a 2 week window. Can't really hang out in Florida for two weeks waiting to see if it's going to go up. And they don't usually land in Florida, so seeing that isn't likely either. But you can bet I'll do my best to watch on TV!

One of my favorite trips was to the Johnson Space Center outside of Houston. No, I wasn't in school, it was a few years ago when Sharonda was temporarily living in Houston. I went to visit for 4th of July and we spent half a day at JSC. It was AWESOME and I can't wait to go back. So many things stick out about that trip, the actual Mission Control room that was staffed during the Apollo 13 mission, the observatory over the actually training area for the astronauts (which was not in use at the time, it was during the time right after the Columbia disaster when the program was on hold), I got my picture made in front of actual giant rockets (gotta try to find those and scan them...) and of course the grove of trees, one planted for each astronaut lost during a mission. There were all kinds of things to do, and they had a huge kid-friendly exhibit up with all kinds of hands-on stuff (yeah, I did some of it!). I was surprised at how neat it was. I'm facinated with the space program but didn't expect JSC to have so much to do. Greg and I want to go back and I'd love to tour Kennedy as well.

A couple of years ago, when I was walking around the bank as a zombie after getting up at 4:30am two different days to watch the first shuttle launch after Columbia, which kept getting delayed and ended up taking off during the day when I couldn't watch it, I was talking to somebody about the whole space program thing. Don't remember exactly who it was, but as I recall they didn't realize the shuttle was set to launch. Most people didn't. It's sad, the only time the general public seems to care is when a shuttle is destroyed. I remember watching that scene in Apollo 13 when the televised live transmission from space was cancelled and they didn't want to tell the astronauts. We're there again. Nobody cares what the projects are on the missions, or when they go up, or when they come down, other than to see if something tragic will happen.

I don't want to see anything tragic happen, I want to see the awesome beauty of that rocket blasting into space, or cruising in for a smooth landing. I even love watching the shuttle being piggybacked back to Florida after it lands in California. It seems so huge, until they park it on the back of that plane and fly it across the country! But as a culture, we've lost our love and awe of space travel. I blame TV. We've gotten so used to seeing cool things on TV, CG and special effects, that we don't really notice something as common as a space shuttle lifting off or our astronauts doing a space walk. Heck, we've seen that on Star Trek a hundred times, and they make it look easy.

But it's also, in part, NASA's fault. They haven't done anything NEW in ages. It's past time for a new shuttle. It's past time to revisit the moon, or Mars. I know all of those things are in the works, and that it takes time, but we seem to be stuck in slow motion with the program and all the problems over the past few years have made it worse. We're impatient for progress in an area that can't be rushed, but still seems to be moving backwards at times.

Do kids even want to be astronauts anymore? I haven't heard one say that in a long time, and that makes me sad. I'm also sad because I left my little toy shuttle at home. I usually get it and do a mock liftoff or landing while watching the shuttle. Perhaps I can do a recreation when I get home tonight. In the meantime, lets pray they land safe and get a hero's welcome home.