So finding ourselves in Cocoa Beach for a chess tournament, I drag my son to the Kennedy Space Center. I try to go anytime I am within 50 miles of it. He protests "it's all old stuff". I think he means the Apollo program and the grainy black and white images from the moon visits.
Once we get there, I almost start to agree with him about the getting old part. The rockets on display could use a touch of paint - some are rusting from the Florida humidity. Monitors in many of the exhibits could use a HD upgrade. Staff seems skeletal. An IMAX movie shows kids not knowing who the first man on the moon was. One says Lance Armstrong. Most accents we hear around us are foreign. Almost as if US kids have little interest in NASA.
But by the end of the visit, having seen what NASA is doing with the International Space Station and the next-generation Orion space craft program, my son had perked up quite a bit. He even asked to go to the Astronaut Hall of Fame a short drive away and see it honor Glenn, Borman, Crippen, Ride and many of our space heroes.
I did not mention that we are about to enter a black hole of a few years where the Space Shuttle will be retired and Orion vehicles become viable. In the interim, we will be very dependent on the aging and erratic Soviet Soyuz transport.
I sure hope my son someday proudly talks about "his generation's space program" as he brings his kids to Cape Canaveral.
