People Are Awesome

My phone buzzed as I was in an Uber heading from Manhattan to JFK in order to catch a flight home.

“Artemis II launch is happening!! I’m watching live on NASA!”

The message from our youngest daughter flashed up in our family group chat.

“Oh, yeah,” I thought to myself. “The rocket goes off in about 90 minutes.”

I was struck by the excitement that leapt out from our from daughter’s text. I suddenly remembered how space shuttle launches were a huge deal when I was in high school. I am too young to have memories of the Apollo flights and moon landings, but my teenage years are awash in recollections of space shuttle missions and sonic booms we could hear in our home when the shuttle would land on the West Coast of the United States. I remember how exciting it was to see a spaceship blast into orbit and then glide back to Earth like an airplane.

For 36 years I have kept a framed poster in my office from a National Geographic issue from 1990: “THE UNIVERSE: Nature’s Grandest Design”:

I remember being mesmerized at the magnitude of space. Our sun and local star neighbors reduced to a single point in the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way reduced to a single point into our local group of galaxies. Our local group reduced to a single point in our local supercluster. Our local supercluster again reduced into a single point in the known universe.

The universe as we knew it in 1990. As we knew it before the Hubble telescope was fully operational. As we knew it before the James Webb telescope.

A universe so big and so vast.

Our existence so small.

Heartbroken

Of course, those old enough to remember space shuttle launches likely remember where we were when we heard that Challenger had exploded killing its crew.

I was a freshman at the University of California at Berkeley, and I remember running into my fraternity house asking my friends if they knew.

The were already aware, but for some reason the TV was off. I turned it on and watched replay after replay of the accident.

And then, 17 years later, many of us watched Columbia disintegrate on re-entry from orbit. My wife and I were moving into our first house on that fateful day, and I remember that I randomly turned on the TV as we unpacked our belongings. I felt so conflicted to be enjoying the celebration of owning our first home on a day of such a horrible tragedy.

It seems like the magic of space flight after that moment went into two decades of silence. Even though the accomplishments of SpaceX showed new capabilities and potential, the miracle of human exploration and space discovery felt overshadowed by new technologies on Earth such as the internet, the smartphone, and AI.

The Magic Rekindles

A little over 90 minutes after getting our daughter’s text I stood at the gate of my flight waiting to board. I decided to check the news one last time before getting on the plane. After visiting the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times I opened the New York Times.

Serendipity.

They were streaming the launch, and I tuned in just as the rocket went off. I watched Artemis II slowly climb away from our planet, gathering speed as the seconds went by. I could barely breathe — I was hoping that everything would go smoothly. After a few minutes, as Artemis II entered space, the live-stream showed an angle of the rocket silhouetted against our planet as the camera looked back to where the astronauts began their journey.

I was surprisingly choked up by the grandeur of it all. We were once again sending humans into space to circle the moon.

Seeing our planet and the rocket next to each other, my eyes welled up with tears that I did not expect.

People Are Awesome

When our kids were younger there was a popular YouTube account titled “People Are Awesome.” The site showed videos of people doing amazing things — athletics, physical tricks, acrobatics, etc. It was total brain candy, but it was fun to see what people could come up with while capturing their exploits on video.

As I looked again at our daughter’s text — sent by a young woman almost 24 years old who had never experienced the magic and anticipation that surrounds space flight — I was moved as I felt her excitement jump out from my phone screen.

And I realized that I was feeling that same excitement after so many years. It was like seeing a long-lost friend whom you run into unexpectedly.

Watching the live-stream, at that moment, the everyday trials and tribulations of our species melted away.

Through watery eyes I just kept thinking:

People are awesome.

Welcome home, Artemis II.