zOwie Omega Discussion Forum

I watched, as I'm sure you all did, the footage of the shuttle over and over again on the news. It brought back memories the Challenger accident.

It also brought back a lot of memories of my childhood. I'm in my mid 30's and as a young child I was surrounded by images and books about astronauts and the space program. I dreamed about being an astronaut for a very long time (well, until I discovered girls :-)

Anyway, after watching the footage I got nostalgic and wound up on the web looking at old images of the Apollo program. While looking around, I saw several watches worn by astronauts. For a split second I thought to myself, "You know, I think I might get a moon watch." Then I very quickly decided that buying a really expensive watch wasn't really what I needed to do. I think it would have left me with a very hollow feeling.

I'm going to send money to a trust fund established for the children of the Columbia astronauts. This fund was originally setup after the Challenger accident and has done some good. It's apparently very hard for astronauts to get good insurance and through the years a lot of the surviving families of astronauts, test pilots, etc. have REALLY struggled making ends meet. I believe this fund also helps provide some counseling.

Please don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against buying nice watches, cars, etc. And I probably will buy that Speedy one day. Maybe I'm just feeling guilty because I get paid an absurd amount of money for what I do - especially when compared to an astronaut. Maybe it's because I have a 17 month old son. But whatever the reason, for right now, I know that I personally have to do something else.

I've put the link to an AP news story about the Trust Fund below. The story tells you where to send donations if anyone is interested.