I was 6 when we landed on the moon. I spent my elementary years during the Apollo program watching men walk on the moon on a regular basis. The toys of my childhood all had to do with spacesuits, rockets, moon landings and anything having to do with the Apollo program. So it's no wonder that I love anything to do with space and rockets.
I've always been a big fan of the space shuttles and have always wanted to go to Florida not to see Disney World or Universal Studios but to watch a launch and tour the Space Center and see the original Apollo memorabilia. But since I live on the west coast this will probably never happen.
So the other day I was thrilled when I was reading my daily Google news bites and saw that the Shuttle Atlantis was going to launch in about 30 minutes. I quickly jumped onto the NASA site and launched the live video feed. Then as the count down started at T-minus 9 minutes I thought, "hey I have a high def LCD TV and I get the NASA channel on DirectTV?". So I sat and watched the launch live as it was happening on my TV Set. I got to see it take off and then drop its boosters and then reach orbit and drop the main fuel tank. Traveling at over 8000 mph at 67 miles high it begins its trip to join up with the space station. I had never watched a launch live before and it was pretty thrilling just thinking about how routine they make such a complex achievement take place.
