I’ve Got a Golden Ticket

I have seen some email scams before and I wasn’t about to fall victim to another. But this one seemed a little different than the rest. I was sitting on my pool deck, watching my children swim after coming home from their first day back at school, when the email arrived and read:

Dear Thomas LaRock,

Congratulations, your registration to attend the STS-133 Tweetup Oct. 31-Nov. 1 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida has been selected! The two-day event will provide you the opportunity to speak with shuttle technicians, engineers, astronauts, and managers, and to view the launch of space shuttle Discovery to the International Space Station, targeted for 4:40 p.m. EDT, Nov. 1.

W. T. F?

I think I just sat there and smiled for maybe five minutes. And now I know exactly how Charlie felt when he ripped open that Wonka bar

I never dreamed that I would climb
Over the moon in ecstasy
But nevertheless, it’s there that I’m
Shortly about to be
‘Cause I’ve got a Golden Ticket

And then I noted the time of the launch, 4:40PM EDT, which seemed quite fitting for the guy that has been wanting to build a new blog for Confio and name it “Afternoon Ignite”.

I have been enamored with all things related to space since I can remember. I visited Kennedy Space Center as a child and came home with two plastic models of Enterprise. I saw the moon rocks, the space capsules, and even climbed underneath one of the rockets they had on display outside. I watched Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, and lesser known shows such as Project Blue Book. I read about the moon landings, knew about the launch of Voyager (and how awesome was it for the first Star Trek movie to tie that into the plot?), and took pride in knowing that Neptune and Pluto were crossing paths for a period of time.

As I got older I continued reading more, picking up books such as Parallel Universes by Fred Alan Wolf. As an undergrad I took the few astronomy courses offered at my school. And as a graduate student I ended up at Washington State University where the Mathematics and Astronomy departs were linked, making it very easy for me to take astronomy courses as part of my workload. My master’s project was titled “The Interstellar Radiation Field of Globular Clusters”.

So, yeah, I’m excited by all of this. Who wouldn’t be?

For three days I get to be a kid again. I can’t wait.

9 thoughts on “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket”

  1. Nice. Buzz Aldrin spoke at the Microsoft Australian Partner Conference a couple of weeks ago. I wasn’t there, although hearing he was the keynote speaker almost persuaded me.

    Reply
  2. That is really cool! I just took a tour of the Johnson Space Center in March, color me jealous that you get to see one of the last shuttle launches! Can’t wait to hear your thoughts as it goes down!

    Reply
  3. oops, unfortunate choice of words. Shall we rephrase to “As the launch progresses” or some other such suitable English.

    Reply

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