NASA aspirations

On Monday, we went to a talk by former NASA astronaut, Rhea Seddon (http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/seddon.html ). Very interesting it was, too. - she was one of the first women on the space programme, and she talked us through a video of one of her space shuttle flights. Fascinating facts included what astronauts do with their time-off (they climb on top of each other to see how easy it is for the person at the bottom of the pile to do a press-up in zero-g). We also learned that, technically, those in the space shuttle don't really experience zero-g. They're still within the earth's orbit, so what they experience is more of a kind of giant, very low gravity free-fall.

Anyway, we were a small group of home educators among a swathe of school uniforms and there were odd bits of the talk that were clearly designed to motivate the schoolchildren. We were told by someone other than Rhea that we shouldn't be disruptive in maths lessons (!), to which our astronaut added that the harder you work, the luckier you get (I thought, "Ha! Tell that to the miners"). But, all in all, it was a fascinating event and Rhea's presentation skills were inspirational. She talked for an hour without notes, hesitation or repetition, and was really persuasive. I wonder if there's something in the US water system that makes people so much better at speaking? Oh no, I forgot, that would make Dubya an amazing orator.

All the children had their photos taken with Rhea, and while we were waiting in the autograph queue, we got chatting to a young guy in a jumpsuit who is working for Virgin's new space tourism programme. I couldn't help wondering if we could volunteer Badman for a one-way ticket.