Spaceballs

(what can I say, it was the 80s)“I know you have been Journalist Astronaut candidate for the NASA Journalist in Space Program," read the email I opened the other day. “Hello from France!" it began. "I am Stéphane Sebile, a young space exploration fan. I agree your indulgence for my bad English!”Stéphane has a website on space exploration it seems. And he's right about me: back in the day I did somehow make it to the final 40 out of a field of more than 1,000 journalists hoping for ride on the Shuttle - until the mission was put on hold in the wake of the Challenger disaster.Here's our exchange:Stéphane: “Why have you decide to become candidate for NASA Space selection for journalists?”Me: “When they announced the Teacher in Space Competition all I could think was ‘Oh WHY did I leave teaching after only seven years? If I’d stayed in the classroom I could apply for this!’ Then the next fall, with Christa McAuliffe in flight training at the Johnson Space Center, a new competition was announced for people in my current career. A shiver went down my spine. A second chance?”Stéphane: “I suppose you would like to go in space. But why?”Me: “All my life I've struggled for a kind of perspective that has mostly eluded me. But each time I fly in a plane I can suddenly see my life whole; see our lives. I feel this sudden sense of exaltation, and want to tell everyone, “There’s so much more than we can see! We don’t HAVE to live like ants! ‘”Stéphane: “Did you think it's important for the mankind to have a step in space, to send man in space and why?”Me: “OH yes. The human race is in its infancy! We’re babies, still in our playpens! But we’re learning fast now. It’s time to leave the house; to look around some. And this little solar system? It's just our front yard.”Stéphane: “What represent for you Yuri Gagarin?”Me: “A Russian the first person up there?! Americans were horrified. And sure, back in ‘61 we kids played endless games of the Commies against the Americans, but we had this young President, and a dawning sense that there just might be room for all of us in his New Frontier.”Stéphane: “What represent for you Apollo 11? Which memory(ies) have you of this event?”Me: “July of ’69. I stayed up all night with my new boyfriend to watch it with his mom on her black-and-white TV. We waited and waited to see that first boot set down on moondust."Stéphane: “What will be your most incredible space dream?”Me: “That someday there will be more people like you, fascinated by the prospect of space flight. With only a handful of missions left, I realize NASA won’t be putting me up there but maybe you will go, Stéphane, and how’s that for a dream? And when you get back, maybe I’ll get to interview you!”And that was it. You have to admire people like Stéphane, keepin' the dream alive eh? And wasn't I the brave one back then, offering to on that mission, babies or no babies?