Mission Control (Day 15)

MMk, I have a confession. I. am. a. nerd. And, um, I might be obsessed with space. I know every single Star Trek: The Next Generation episode by name from the first 12 seconds. I have read Ender's Game at least 12 times. And when I was a kid, I thought I wanted to be an astronaut.

Actually, part of me still wants to be an astronaut, even though I know how impractical that is for me. So, you can imagine how cool it was for me to lead a field trip to Mission Control. If you go to Space Center Houston you can take a tram tour and view the Apollo control room through a glass window.

But, if you know a NASA engineer you can walk on the floor, play with the buttons and pneumatic tubes, and just soak up the history. So, here I am, sitting at the Flight Director's desk:

This is where Neil Armstrong transmitted those famous words: Houston, the Eagle has landed. It's where they frantically searched for Challenger after it broke apart. It's where they coordinated the Apollo 13 rescue and the historic docking between Russia and the United States during the Cold War.
You never know. I might still make it there one day.