When Elton John and his lyricist partner Bernie Taupin wrote the song Rocket Man, Taupin was inspired by a 1951 collection of Ray Bradbury short sci-fi stories.
The stories depicted the complex relationship between technology and psychology, and one story, in particular, was about an astronaut’s love of the stars. The man ventures into space for 3 months at a time and returns to earth for only a few short days to see his wife and son, deeply torn between his love of space and his family. Back in 1971, the future of space travel for long periods of time was exhilarating, and being an astronaut looked like it could never become a fairly routine job.
Now, 50+ years later, I was surprised to learn that, in fact, it has become a fairly routine job.
Randy’s always been the one in our family who has been enamored with rockets, air and space travel. When he was young, he was in Civil Air Patrol and many times over the years he talked about, but never did, start a rocketry program for kids. When we moved to Florida, we were told that we could see the rocket launches on the Atlantic Space Coast (Cape Canaveral) even though we live on the Southwest (Gulf) Coast of Florida. I thought it was a stretch. It is not.
The first launch we saw was from a shopping center built on a pier that juts into Charlotte Harbor in Punta Gorda. We happened to have finished dinner and the alarm I’d set for the launch reminded us to find a view of the northeastern sky. I pulled up the website spacex.com/launches and we watched the live countdown. People started to gather as we told them what we were waiting for. Shortly after lift-off online we were thrilled to see the rocket burn an incredibly bright path through the still daylight sky as it curved out and into outer space. I was hooked! We discovered that we can see rocket launches from our lanai, straight over the roof of the house directly across the canal. What a bonus in buying this house.
SpaceX is the big player in the rocket world today. While one is watching the live countdown starting 2 hours before lift-off, the live feed is filled with fascinating stuff…information about the mission, the crew, the payload, the vehicle, the expectations. There was a launch on May 21 that I’d set my alarm for, and in scrolling through the details of that mission, I realized there was scheduled to be an older woman aboard. My first thought was that she was wealthy and it was one of those last hurrah kinds of things for her, buying a seat on a rocket flight. But it was unusual enough to me, that I started poking around a little deeper to see what her story is.
As it turns out, the woman, Peggy Whitson, 63, is a seasoned astronaut. I was surprised (and embarrassed by my paradigms) to learn that Whitson is an American biochemistry researcher, retired NASA astronaut and former NASA Chief Astronaut. She has (before this mission) 665 days in space, more than any other American or woman. She was the first woman to command the International Space Station and she did that twice. She also holds records for the oldest woman spacewalker and the most spacewalks by a woman. At age 57 on her final NASA flight, she was the oldest woman ever in space at that time. This week’s flight broke her own records so today, at age 63, she’s still the oldest woman to fly in earth orbit.
As an aside, John Glenn, at age 77, is the oldest man to achieve orbit. The Guinness Book of World records lists the oldest man in space as William Shatner, who, at age 90, journeyed into space aboard a craft called Blue Origin. Blue Origin is owned by Jeff Bezos (who owns Amazon) and though that craft also did technically cross the Karman Line (the internationally recognized boundary of space) the whole trip from start to finish took 11 minutes. No orbiting for Captain Kirk, so John Glenn is still recognized by NASA as the oldest man in space.
Peggy Whitson retired from NASA and became a consultant for Axiom Space Corporation. That’s how she ended up as the Commander of the May 21, 2023, Axiom Mission 2. Raised on an Iowa farm, she decided to become an astronaut after watching the first moon landing on television as a child in 1969. Farm girl to Ph.D. biochemist to accomplished and record-breaking astronaut…it seems like an incredible and fascinating journey I want to know more about. I couldn’t find a biography (book) written about her yet, but you can be sure I am going to watch for that. In the meantime, I’m interested enough to research everything I can find about her currently available.
I used to pride myself on being a news junkie. I find myself asking more and more these days, how did I not know that? Or, why in the world have I never heard of this person? I guess the answer to that is that the unimaginable has happened. Being an astronaut has become a pretty routine job.
Good for Peggy, and yay for technology. Being an astronaut might be a routine job, but rocket launches are still special to me and Randy.
P.S. Had a really rough week, health wise as I developed an infection and sprung a serious leak. Finally, on Sunday, I turned back onto the road to recovery and am, as of this writing Monday night, doing well. Curiously, none of this has anything to do with cancer. It’s all related to the breast surgery. Thanks for all your prayers and concern.
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