Return To Flight
I had the amazing experience today to get to interview Eileen Collins, NASA's first female Shuttle pilot and first and currently only female Shuttle commander, and the commander of the upcoming STS-114 Return to Flight mission. She was very friendly and wonderful to talk to, and gave us a lot of great material for our summer special edition about her (She even told me when the next mission is currently scheduled for, but that would be ruining the surprise, wouldn't it?). She had a lot of great stuff to say, particularly about the importance of the Shuttle, and about her interest in space tourism (basically, she hopes to be a space tourist someday so that she'll actually have some free time to enjoy being in space... unlike her very-busy experiences on the Shuttle). It was just an incredible opportunity to meet someone who has already played a historic role in the space program, and has another historic role to play coming up.
I also got to meet Dr. John Houbolt, another great hero of the space program. On NASA Kids, I get a lot of people of asking if we went to the Moon, why nobody else did. And the answer is, 'cause nobody else could figure out what Houbolt did. Essentially, he pushed for the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous technique that made the lunar landing possible.

:: :: 15:42 :: David :: [permalink] ::