Geek Habitat

Oops. So much for my personal blogging having longevity when I’m heavily involved in using social media (Twitter, Facebook, blip.fm, etc.)

I’ll try to get back on track by posting a “Where Have We Been” outline since there’s plenty of news that just never trickled back here for a blog entry. I’ve also done a truly underwhelming job of summarizing the NASA Tweetup experiences I have had the privilege of experiencing in November 2009 (STS-129 launch at KSC) and February 2010 (STS-130 mid-mission at Johnson Space Center, aka Mission Control – Houston.)

I’d usually throw in a “we’re all well — kidlet’s doing great, etc.” here but right now I’m on antibiotics and oral steroids to back down a sinus infection and we nearly had to take Sara to the ER today due to illness-induced dehydration. She see’s her pediatrician at 9AM today.

Want to see the next shuttle launch? Go to http://www.nasa.gov/nasatweetup to put you name into the hat.

Yes, apparently I have forgotten I have my own blog… I’ll try to stop being such a stranger around here!

I posted the following as a series of tweets (start here,) and they struck me as something I would like to record in the blog and expand upon in a full entry at a later date. Apologies to those for whom this is a repeat (but thanks for following me on Twitter, if so!)

I feel a VOID due to the loss of the Constellation program and Moon 2.0, but it occurs to me — what was NASA’s grand vision/goal when I was growing up (frame of reference: 1986 to 1993)? There really wasn’t one. I remember being incredibly disillusioned/disheartened when Space Station Freedom was cancelled. I remember wishing for the “glory days” of Skylab. Despite that, I recall a childhood and indeed, a lifetime thus far, spent excited and inspired by what NASA and our international partners were/are doing. Out of the “ashes” of Space Station Freedom, I never could have imagined all that we would accomplish building and inhabiting the International Space Station. My point being: dreams make their own reality, in a way. Those who love space, exploration, education, knowledge: don’t stop dreaming.

Need to blog about NASA’s most recent tweetup, which I had the privilege of attending at Johnson Space Center on February 17, 2010.

Watch this space (and sorry that my Twitter plug-in apparently activated itself to spew stuff for the past week without my knowledge! )

Awesome videos & interviews of STS-129’s launch & the NASA Tweetup back on November 15-16 from the folks at SpaceFlightNow.com, including Miles O’Brien (@milesobrien) and David Waters (@davidgwaters):

Check ‘em out at The STS-129 Experience: Tweetup & Launch

I bought Sara’s Halloween costume LONG before the STS-129 NASA Tweetup was even announced, much less before I knew I was going to be one of the lucky attendees. I could have bought her an International Space Station or even a Project Constellation / Ares flight suit (the latter, of course, doesn’t even exist yet since it’s a long way from manned spaceflights), but the Space Shuttle is what I grew up with and I will always have a very special place in my heart for the Space Transportation System (STS) and the orbiter in particular.

Even with, or perhaps even because of, the Space Shuttle program slowly winding down (heavy sigh), I wanted her flight suit to be a memento/keepsake not just a Halloween costume–a reminder that when she was *imagine holding up the flight suit* “only this big” the Space Shuttle was still flying and building out the International Space Station.

Anyway, the moment my husband Justin (@bikegeek) took that photo of her I knew it was a keeper. It’s going to end up as a canvas wrap art print on our wall at home (it would already be there, if not for my expenditures to attend the tweetup!) and, naturally, when I discovered I was one of the lucky attendees it became the photo I featured on my contact/business cards–all of which I ended up handing out to people at the NASA Tweetup or elsewhere during my stay in Florida for the Tweetup.

And it ended up on my luggage tags and my desktop wallpaper, too.

So, naturally, it was perfect when I was approached during the (crazy-busy but awesome) launch day activities inside the STS-129 NASA Tweetup tent by @skytland who wanted to feature Justin’s photo of Sara in an article on OpenNASA.com, a collaborative blog written by NASA employees across the agency, and occasional invited guests. The article, “It’s Better in Person,” is terrific and it’s an honor to see our beautiful daughter’s photo featured in it!

A high resolution copy of the photo is available on Flickr via a Creative Commons-Attribution-ShareAlike license, which means anyone can use it for pretty much any purpose as long as they credit my husband Justin with the photo — Justin W. Moore / @bikegeek / Moore Photography & Design are all options, with the preference being his name plus one of the other items.

And thus, our already amazing and wonderful daughter is shared with the world in a most wonderful way–helping to advance the quest for space and the expansion of human knowledge. It doesn’t get any better than that. Wait, it does…seeing a Space Shuttle launch in person with 100+ amazing people? Indescribably perfect. Thank you so much, NASA!