Aight.

50 years done gone by, and everybody is (temporarily) on the space bandwagon. It’s a good time to sit back and reflect on the ‘state of the union’ in our quest to get off this rock.

Back in tha day, when a Caan-esque man in a star-spangled suit captured the world’s attention by nearly killing himself many times over, I, too, was inspired. The first rocket I ever built was a seminal moment … I can still feel the white glue on my fingers as I tried to translate words such as “sparingly” and “smooth fillets” into a flight-worthy construction process. My Sky Cycle flew about as well as the original, but the fire was lit, and my passion for space and rockets continued unabated through college. My dreams of being the “Henry Ford of the Space Industry” may have dimmed, but I still haven’t abandoned the passion entirely.

I watched when Apollo-Soyuz made their historic link. When Enterprise rode a 747, I was glued to the set. From the shock of Challenger, to the day Roton first rolled out of it’s hangar … through Burt Rutan’s capture of the X-Prize … I have followed it all.

So close, and yet so far away.

Seems like we might be a little closer to the science-fiction future we’ve all dreamed of, what with Virgin Galactic set to take-off (literally), space-ports popping up all over the USA and Europe, and other efforts from Musk, Bigelow, and Bezos coming along nicely.

Personally, I am glad simply to be around to witness this stuff, but I’d still drop everything to go work for ANY of these companies in a heartbeat.  (So if you’re listening out there, I’ve got experience building rockets by hand!)  But in the end, I hold out hope that I may get a chance to go … before I am too old to care.

Here’s to hope!