exciting!

SpaceX's Dragon capsule is closing in on the ISS.

When I was a kid, I was blessed to have parents who seemed to understand my passion for knowledge. Mom bought me the Golden Book Encyclopedia set, book by book, even though at least once she complained about the cost. She was very good with money but I cried over the possibility that I'd be missing one element of the set and she gave in. I don't remember which edition that was, but I do remember that the first book in the set was "Aardvark to Aristotle."

And then there was the Saturn V model that I built: three feet tall, with separable stages and removable LEM. (I found this website today, don't know if it's the same brand I had.) Talk about fuel for the imagination! I still remember walking down the trail beside the woods behind our house, holding up the Command/Service Module and pretending that it was traveling to a distant planet.

SpaceX is bringing back some of the excitement of the space program for me. The future is today. Funny thing, though; when I was a child, I never expected to see the 21st Century. I assumed that we'd all be dead in a nuclear holocaust by now.