Celebrating Skylab

Somehow, I missed having “wear a gold disco suit to talk to Skylab astronauts in front of hundreds of people” on my bucket list, but the U.S. Space & Rocket Center can make even the dreams you didn’t know you have come true.

Friday night, I had the honor of serving as emcee for USSRC’s ’70s-themed Skylab 50th anniversary celebration, including a conversation with Skylab astronauts Jack Lousma and my friend and co-author Joe Kerwin.

Twenty years ago, I was in the audience for the Skylab 30th-anniversary event at USSRC, and that event drove home that someone should write a book about this incredible story, contributing to the genesis of what became Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story.

It was so very special Friday to have come full circle, once again celebrating a Skylab anniversary at the Rocket Center, but this time on stage with the astronauts.

It’s a huge tribute to the USSRC team what an amazing night it was. They’ve become experts at elevating events into celebrations, and everyone had a great time.

I’m blessed to have had this amazing adventure, and blessed to live in a city where amazing dreams take flight.

Stewarding the Outward Odyssey

Things I signed in a 24-hour period this week:

• Dozens of books for teachers

• A moon rocket.

On Wednesday, I got to sign my name on the SLS Orion Stage Adapter for Artemis II, scheduled to launch next year.

On Thursday, I gave my weekly summer Skylab talk to teachers at Space Camp, and signed copies of Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story for all the teachers.

Both were an incredible privilege, and together a good reminder of a point I make to the teachers each week – all of these things are part of an ongoing adventure.

Skylab was 50 years ago this year. It’s history – history we can learn from, history that can inspire.

Artemis II is scheduled to launch next year. It will see astronauts fly around the Moon for the first time in over half a century. It’s a step toward the next footprints on the lunar surface.

But even those next footprints are just another step – Mars and other worlds await. And carrying that torch forward will be a new generation of scientists and engineers and astronauts and more. My charge to the Space Camp teachers – go home and educate and inspire that future workforce that will accomplish things the Skylab generation and the Artemis generation never dreamed. Do good work.

I’m honored to have chronicled past chapters of our outward odyssey. I’m honored to be involved in the current chapter. But I’m most honored to be a steward of the adventure for those who keep it going.

Fifty Years of Skylab

Fifty years ago today, my life changed, though I wouldn’t know it for 30 years, and wouldn’t even be born for two.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the launch of Skylab. There are lots of articles today about how Skylab changed spaceflight. And it’s true – I’ve given many many talks over the years about how Skylab was the reboot, to use today’s parlance, of American spaceflight, a new start after Apollo that shifted the focus from racing *through space* to the Moon, to living and working *in space* for the first time, to homesteading space, laying the foundation for everything that’s come since.

But that’s big and academic-sounding and the sort of importance about which history books are written. More visceral and more powerful are the stories not about how it changed spaceflight, but how it changed people.

That was the biggest joy of writing Homesteading Space, was talking to those people, from astronauts to engineers to educators and more, and hearing their voices as they talked about how this giant can of metal in the sky had changed their lives, how it had touched them.

It’s surreal to me that I get to be one of those people, to tell stories of friends that it’s still weird that I even got to know, of adventures I’m incredibly blessed to have had, and of the stories I get to steward for the rest of my life.

And I love the idea that, when my son is a few years older than I am, someone might ask him about his name, and he can talk about his dad’s friend, and about a rocket that launched an entire century earlier, and paved the way for space stories I today can’t even imagine.

That One Night of Skylab and Comedy

I’ve given a lot of Skylab talks over the years, and I’ve been in a lot of comedy shows, but they’d never been the same thing, until Saturday night.

It was an incredible thrill to be invited by Rocket City Improv to be the guest storyteller at their Stories on Stage show at Shenanigans Comedy Theatre this month, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Skylab. I told stories from Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story, and they performed hilarious scenes “inspired” by the stories – feuds with the windmill section astronauts, the best zero-g special effects you’ve seen on stage, and research into what WOULD happen if you launch cobras to bite and kill astronauts in space, which really hasn’t been studied.

The beauty and sorrow of improv is that it’s ephemeral – if you weren’t there Saturday night, you’ve missed out forever on an incredible show, but if you haven’t been to one of the Stories on Stage performances featuring a new storyteller each month, you really should.

Five Days and Counting

Five days and counting!

From sheets of metal in New Orleans through engine tests and hardware delivery and stacking, it has been an incredible privilege to watch this rocket grow up. The life story of this rocket has been entwined with the story of my own family, milestones of getting engaged and married and expecting and being joined by Owen overlapping with milestones of core stage welding and booster tests and hardware delivery and stacking. What I got to be part of – watching history being made – would have been special to me in its own right, but it’s all the more special for overlapping such a special time in my own life. But now, after we’ve watched so many milestones and first steps, SLS and Orion are all grown up, and I’m so proud of what it’s become.

And so, the time has come for them to leave the nest and fly! Godspeed, Artemis I, and safe travels.

Eight Days and Counting

Eight days and counting!

For anyone on the fence about going to launch in person, go!

If a rocket were designed purely for the experience of watching it launch, it’d look a lot like SLS – towering almost as tall as a Saturn V, with more thrust at launch than Saturn or Shuttle, with the sonic mix of liquid engines and solid boosters, and SRBs you’ll potentially be able to watch fall away. No rocket in history or planned offers quite the mix of sensory awe that SLS will provide.

This WILL be a show, and unforgettable.

Celebrating 40 Years of Space Camp

What a thrill to be there last night for the celebration of Space Camp’s 40th anniversary! At an 80s-themed dinner event, eight new members were inducted into the Space Camp Hall of Fame, including the crew of last year’s historic Inspiration4 space mission.

I broke out the Walkman and rocked a mustache for an amazing night. Rebecca and I got to hang out with mustache icon astronaut Hoot Gibson, and get my Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University magnet signed by two fellow Eagles – Inspiration4’s Jared Isaacman and Chris Sembrowski.

Wearing my SpaceCamp: The Movie t-shirt, I got my picture made with one of the stars of that film, Jinx the robot.

It was wonderful seeing so many friends, including U.S. Space & Rocket Center CEO Dr Kimberly Robinson – the announcement this week of a new building funded by a gift by Isaacman is just the latest growth to the Center since she began her tenure last year.

Over 1 million people have attended Space Camp in its four decade history, and it has inspired so many people and changed so many lives – many of whom are now inspiring others and changing lives themselves. It will be exciting to see what the future holds!

From Tiny Space-Acorns, Might Space-Oaks Grow

When I was in the VAB, I took a picture with this pin, and was going to make the joke that It turns out if you plant enough of these little SLS seeds, you can grow a full-size NASA’s Space Launch System.

I was struck, though, by how true that really is. We handed out a lot of those little pins when I was part of the SLS Strategic Communications team, to industry leaders and political stakeholders and pop culture convention attendees and fifth-grade teachers and so so many more.

An effort like SLS takes not only engineering expertise, it requires the will of a nation to make it happen, and the SLS comm team, under the leadership of Kimberly Robinson and Marcia Lindstrom and Trey Cate, deserves a huge amount of respect for their part in stirring imaginations and excitement to make this game-changing rocket – and all the Artemis efforts it’s inspired – a reality.

They’ve planted a lot of seeds, and it’s amazing to see what’s grown from them.

Metal and Might and Magic

Somewhere twixt the pages of Homesteading Space: The Skylab Story, Skylab was in the VAB at Kennedy Space Center. In Bold They Rise: The Space Shuttle Early Years, 1972-1986, there’s mention of Columbia undergoing testing at the VAB. When the latter happened, I was about five years ago. For the former, I was a few years from being born.

How amazing, then, to witness that history this time? How incredible to have been a part of it?

I got to see the rocket.

I got to stand across the transfer aisle of the VAB and look over at this skyscraper-size vehicle I got to work on, whose height and breadth and thrust were defined by friends of mine, this tower of metal and might and magic that will return humanity to the Moon.

It’s a beautiful creation. It was an amazing experience.

I can’t wait to see it fly.

Not-So-“Deadly Engineering”

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I might have chosen a name other than “Deadly Engineering” for the series, but I’m nonetheless honored to be on the Science Channel talking about Skylab again.

The Skylab segment in the first episode of the third season of this series and my previous SCI appearance on “Engineering Catastrophes” take a little more sensationalist approach than the “Searching for Skylab” and “Saving Skylab” documentaries I’ve appeared on, but I’m also far more likely to have people stop me randomly in public to say they saw on my TV from these.

:The Telly-award-winning and Emmy-nominated “Deadly Engineering” series is taking Skylab to the masses, and I’m glad to be able to be a part of it saying nice things about one of history’s greatest human spaceflight programs. You can watch it here – https://www.sciencechannel.com/…/deadly-engineering… – or if you’re a cable-cutter like me, you can purchase the episode on iTunes, Amazon, Vudu and other fine places.