10-9-8-7....

Well, they did it. SpaceX's Falcon 9 space shuttle blasted off from Cape Canaveral at 3:22pm today.  Carrying two astronauts to the space station.  It was very exciting to watch but I do miss Walter Cronkite.  Watching tne event did bring back lots of memories from the 60s.  A 30 something friend of mine said this is the first rocket launch she has ever seen, which surprised me til I stopped and did the math.  One of the commentators today was an austronaut who has been on the space station and had some good explanations of the research that goes on there.  The comment I remember most clearly was about the process of getting there.  This was right after they had made it into the beginning of their orbit, and she was talking about getting into the proper orbit to dock with the space station.  She said "It takes eight minutes to get into space and a day and a half to parallel park."  I can so relate.