What is inspiring.....

My family just returned from vacation.  We went to Florida to see family.  It is important to me to "create moments" that my kids will remember.  As I look at past experiences that we have planned for the family, many revolve around nature (National / State Parks) and Technology (mostly Space / Aviation).

During this trip we visited Huntsville and the US Space and Rocket Center.

Space Camp is hosted here and as a kid I wanted nothing more than to attend Space Camp.  For lots of reasons that was not in the cards for me.  Though they do offer adult camps......

The visit was good and there was a fair amount for the kids to do... simulators, rock climbing, rides, etc. which they all liked.  Overall I felt that the exhibits were a bit dated and were not being maintained.  I visited the location in 1997 and some things have changed (i.e. they added a Saturn V rocket exhibit similar to Kennedy) which was interesting.

We took the bus tour and the highlight of the entire visit was touring the payload operations center.  There we got to see the team working with the International Space Station.  The ISS had just received a shipment of supplies that morning and one of the engineers came out to discuss the mission.  He mentioned that once the supplies are removed the capsule is filled with trash that is then burned up in the atmosphere.  On this particular mission, they are going to do experiments with flames in the vacuum of space before reentry.  Had we not toured, we would not have known about this exciting experiment.  We also learned about NASA Mars mission and the SLS or Space Launch System.  We plan to land on an asteroid in 2025 and Mars in the 2030s.

Is it that we take this for granted, or are just so consumed with life on our planet that we are not more interested?  In the 1960's we all rallied around the program and it was the worlds success.  Everyone knew the astronauts, the missions and watched it on TV.  It was shown in school and discussed as a class.

I got to witness two space shuttle launches and it was awe inspiring.  Space X and Blue Orion are making things very exciting, why are we not tracking this?  Huntsville and Kennedy were more of a celebration of accomplishments 40+ years ago than a look to the future of space exploration and what lies ahead.  We are going to lose a generation if we cannot find a way to get our children (and their parents) interested in space.