Last September Ruby and I watched the Space Shuttle Endeavour, the last of the space shuttles, make its final landing at LAX. It was a really significant experience for me, as the space shuttle program was a huge source of inspiration for me as a kid, opening up my mind to countless possibilities. As all of the space shuttle orbiters were built in Palmdale, NASA saw fit to donate the final shuttle, Endeavour, to the California Science Center for future generations to see and be inspired by.
So, with the Endeavour now in its almost permanent home (it’s in a temporary exhibit area at while its permanent exhibit space is being built), I took Ruby to see the grand old spaceship. This time around, Ruby was definitely able to understand that we were going to see a spaceship, and that spaceships go into space!
It truly was an amazing and touching experience. The shuttle program meant so much to me as a kid, and I could see genuine excitement from Ruby too, who at not even three years old had lots of questions and genuine fascination. On the walls were photos of the astronaut crews for each of Endeavour’s twenty five missions to space. I told Ruby they were astronauts (beautifully multicultural and staffed by men and women, just like our country strives to be), who went inside the space shuttle into space. That very concept kinda blew her mind; she proceeded to then examine nearly every one of the crew portraits, fascinated that they all went to space.
NASA says that Endeavour is now on its final mission: to educate and inspire. I think I’ll bring Ruby back here from time to time so that she can continue to be inspired as I was as a kid. After all, Endeavour seems to be performing its final mission admirably as evidenced when Ruby asked, “Daddy, when I get older, can I be an astronaut and go into space?”
Or, as she literally said when I explained that this was a rocket engine took the following picture, “Daddy, when I grow up can I make a rocket ship engine?”
Ruby, you can be anything you want to be.
