I remember getting up at 4:00 a.m. and tuning in to see Walter Cronkite and Werner Von Braun (Nazi puke!) play with models of the Gemini capsules, explaining the heat shield; or interviews with Chris Kraft at mission control, all in anticipation of a lift-off that would be hours away, and then would go into extra innings over some mysterious "hold" that had to be resolved. My folks thought it was madness, that I would watch something so plodding and amature at that ungodly hour, but I was riveted. This dreck they call "Reality TV" nowadays, they have NO IDEA! And it was still as much of a thrill watching that big bird land today.
So yes indeed: YAY! Thanks for the tribute blog, Sasha!
~~~hugs, Laika

It was history in the making with Pam commanding Discovery and Peggy commanding Alpha. Its the first time both Alpha and a docked shuttle were both commanded by women. The best thing about it was that it wasnt something that NASA forced to happen. Women are so much a important part of NASA that the ability of women to make their own unique contribution to space exploration will be open to any woman and girl for the future.

Watching what was going on with Shuttle and all of the high and low points has been thrilling. This is only the begining with 3 major space walks and a couple of major robitics sessions before STS-122 can dock. I think that the shuttles dont use the docking PMA on the Nadir side of Unity becasue they would not have access to the payload bay. It will be cool to see Alpha sort all that up and be ready to recieve STS 122 with Columbus in the cargo hold to dock at Harmony after it is attached to the Destiny Lab, It will be way cool to see Colubus attached to Harmony and have all that new space available on Alpha. I just keep holding my breath and hoping that everything will keep going OK becasue I love to see us adding lots more since the infrastructure is mostly in place. Its a great day to be alive!

All my hopes,
Sasha Nexus

I remember the thrill of watching the rockets fly reciting with everyone else "go baby go!" ever if I didn't understand it all! Everyone conveniently forgets that in today's world space is a hugely profitable venture. From Sat. TV, cellphones, internet, not to mention those items discovered in developing space technologies. We've gotten all of these things from the space program. That is just the tip of the iceberg. Getting the station finished is very important and IMHO should've been done years ago. *sigh*

Thanks Sasha for posting this for us!
hugs!
grover

Plan? Ain't got no Plan!
"Beyond Thunder Dome"

Then NASA could do a whole lot more. But unfortunately, we are now the World Police. If we could return our boys home from their many tours of duty, we would save BILLIONS of dollars that we could spend on other things.