“Traditional” transition of leadership from outgoing Challenger

Chairman Bill Ready to newbie Scott Parazynski

  

At the annual meeting of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education (CCSSE) a couple of weeks ago in St. Louis, which included flight directors from most of our 50 learning centers around the world, I received the Chairman’s official light saber! We have an amazing and dedicated board of directors, but obviously we’re big on fun and low on formality! It’s my great honor to help continue the legacy created by the families of the Space Shuttle Challenger in the aftermath of the tragedy, and led so ably by Mr. Bill Readdy these past several years. 

June with the very first copy of Star Challengers!

One of the highlights was the “world premiere” of June Scobee-Roger’s new book, “Star Challengers.” The first books arrived from the printer during our board meeting. I’m the proud owner of an autographed first edition! http://blogs.challenger.org/2010/08/star-challengers-book-moon-base-crisis.html

Chuck Berry still has the moves and the music at 83!

I’ve always been a HUGE fan of Chuck Berry, the inspiration behind Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and generally The Origins of Rock. Life seems to continue to take amazing twists and turns for me — not sure how I got so lucky, as I’m certainly not worthy — and so one evening during the Challenger meetings I was surprised to find myself at Blueberry Hill, in the front row with June, rocking out as the 83 year old Mr. Berry rocked the house! Whatever fountain of youth he’s found, I want some… 

Meanwhile, back in Houston, they’ve announced an opportunity to suggest wake-up music for the Space Shuttle crews of the final missions. Having been the beneficiary of great wake-up calls on 4 of my 5 missions (one flight involved ’round-the-clock operations, so we didn’t have music piped up to us), John Matson of Scientific American interviewed me for his article on the subject: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=nasa-shuttle-music My all-time favorite wake-up tunes were Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xotoDy5806Y) and the song my son Luke sent before the final spacewalk of my career, the theme song to Star Wars! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjMNNpIksaI)

I recently had a chance to get back to the recording studios of Purple Songs Can Fly, located at Texas Children’s Hospital Cancer Center. I’ve been inspired for several years by the talented children and their mentor/creative genius, Anita Kruse. Kids undergoing chemotherapy and other treatments can take their minds to another place and create beautiful music, recordings of which I’ve taken with me to space, and more recently to the summit of Everest. Several of my favorite kids on the planet gave a concert while I was there, and I shared a few stories from the mountain with them (and returned a CD that had been to the top). http://purplesongscanfly.com/photos.html

Who's that good looking astronaut hiding behind that floating corned beef sandwich??!

A good friend emailed me a book review (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/06/RVJE1ECBE5.DTL) with a doctored photograph that bears striking similarity to yours truly. The book review suggests dramatic sensationalism with a number of over-recycled themes, like the corned beef sandwich on Gemini 3, so I won’t be rushing out to buy a copy… Please send me yours and I’ll recycle it for you!

I was also recently back at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Complex to give a few talks to guests from all over the world. It was great to see my buddies Nick, Jon, Livia and others while there. As I left KSC my last visit in May, they informed me that the ladies at the VC had come up with a new nickname for me. This group never misses an opportunity for a practical joke, so they kindly had a new set of wings made up for my flight suit!

I will never wear this in public!

Luke pointing out the contrail from "the best seat in the house!"

Also while down in Cocoa Beach, there just happened to be an ATLAS 5 launch. It turned out to be at a rather uncivilized hour of the day, just after 7 AM, when I’d much prefer to be deep in REM sleep. On the bright side, there happened to be a Starbucks in the lobby of our hotel, so I rousted my son and we were able to watch/feel it soar to orbital velocity while wading in the surf, camera in my right hand and Caramel Macchiato in my left… Absolutely spectacular!