http://vimeo.com/55073825
The Overview Effect -
Enjoy some very brilliant thinking on how a person can experience profound changes in their perspective by seeing Earth from space. Well worth the 19 minutes and looks great in HD on full screen!

I expect that many, or most, or perhaps all Future Astronauts will experience the Overview Effect, even if only to a small degree, and I'd guess that seeing Earth from over 100,000 meters would be a part of everyone's reason to fly. Let's hope we can relay our personal experiences to effect some positive change here on Earth.

Thanks to Ron Rosano for posting this on VG FB.

I know I won't get these spectacular views with only a sub-orbital trip but I can continue to dream.

 

Sir Edmund Hilary said:  “Even those who are mediocre can achieve and those who are fearful can have adventure”.  Could he possibly be right about this in relation to me?

I was working for IBM in the 90s and wondering what to do when retirement happened.  Would I be ready for life’s next phase?

Karen, my friend and college guidance counselor was working to get certification in becoming a life coach.  She wanted to use me and Deb, one of our mutual friends, as test subjects to refine her skills and technique. 

One of the first questions she asked was “What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?.   The first thought in my mind and out of my mouth was “I want to be an astronaut”.  Of course that was ridiculous.  I was 40+ years old and got nauseous on boats and small planes.  I wasn’t a test pilot or a scientist.  I was a project manager with software development for goodness sake.

Then I got to thinking about why I responded “an astronaut”.  Several memories surfaced. 

I sent my nephew, Josh, to space camp at Cape Canaveral when he was young.
I saw one of the first space flights take off from Cape Canaveral... it was in the junior high school yard in Tampa, FL. 
I had become a pilot while living in Alaska and secretly wanted to do more than fly single engine planes.

Well, the words had come out of my mouth and acknowledged them as true.  I finally recognized that  dreaming of being an astronaut was part of my life but never believed it could be achieved.

Fast forward to climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in December, 2009.  We are sitting around a camp fire the evening before the ascendent and talking about adventures.  I was asked what my next adventure would be.    On the way to Tanzania there was a magazine article in which Sir Richard Branson was offering sub-orbital flights.  That gave me the opening to tell them I had always wanted to be an Astronaut. 

Since I had been to all 7 continents only space was left.  Right away, Dawn, an advertising executive in NYC, said she could put together a marketing plan for me to get corporate sponsors.  I wondered why a company would want to sponsor a middle aged grandmother to go into space?  She seemed to feel that it could be done and mentioned several companies that might fit. 

I continued to think about it off and on for the next couple years.    In 2011 I heard about the Space Port being built in New Mexico and started to get excited again.   My friend, Sue, and I visited it in January 2012.  We spent the night in Truth or Consequences, NM then took a guided tour of the Space Port the next day.

We drove through the desert of New Mexico and the first sighting of the Spaceport was like seeing a space ship on he ground.  My heart was racing and words failed me.

The excitement continued and I finally decided to take the plunge.  I signed the contract and sent the deposit to Virgin Galactic.    There are two types of travelers.  Pioneers are those who pay $200,000 up front and Voyagers who pay a deposit of $20,000 with the remainder due before launch.  I’m now # 682 on the list as a Voyager and wishing it would happen tomorrow.

Standing on the runway at the Spaceport, NM.

There is a three pronged theme to my blog this year...bicycling, hiking and space travel.  I plan to post a couple times a week instead of only when I'm out of town as I did last year.

Jan 1 saw me cycling the Tucson Loop path for 59 miles.  It was one of the coldest days of the year and the ride started at 9 am.  It took a good 4 hours and my finger tips and toes never got totally warm.  With that said I had a great time.  There were about 150 people and I saw people I hadn't seen in quite a while.  I hadn't ridden that distance in over 6 months.  Needless to say my muscles were a bit tired that night.

It was a great way to bring in the new year and I hear they may make it an annual event.   I look forward to seeing the improvements to the bike trail by next January.

The cold and now windy weather continued on Jan 3 when we cycled up Mt. Lemmon.   It was even windier than earlier in the week by the time of our regular Friday hiking day, Jan 4.  We hiked Milagrosa trail on the east side of Tucson and saw this 'fixer upper'.  I wonder why no one in our group was interested in it.  You can see from the beautiful blue sky that it was a gorgeous day.