We're Going to Mars

I just thought this was just too cool not to pass on to all of my Blogging mom and dad buddies out there.

Go to this NASA link, fill in your kids names and print out a certificate and when the "Curiosity" rover takes off in 2011, your kid's name (or your name for that matter) will go with it. My six year old is the perfect age to really think this is cool and in two years when this thing goes up, it will give him a reason to follow the mission and have "ownership" in the whole thing.

NASA has been doing this the past few missions, but this is the first time I've taken advantage of it and being a big 'ol nerd myself, I thought it was a pretty cool thing to get the kids interested in space science.

To give you an idea of how big of a nerd I am, back when I was a young lad of around nine or ten, I talked my family into taking a family vacation down the road a little ways here in California to Edwards Airforce Base.  For those that follow the news, this is where the space shuttle lands (and just landed this past weekend) when the landing facilities in Florida are not available for whatever reason.  The shuttle wasn't landing during our vacation, unfortunately, but they had a lot of space shuttle stuff there including the original test ship, Enterprise.  In addition, Edwards is a facility that test flies a bunch of experimental aircraft so they had a lot of stuff centered around that too.  It was really a great vacation and I still remember it as one of my favorites even now.  So much so, that after the shuttle landing this past weekend, I thought it might be a good day trip for us.  Granted, since September 11th, it's much more locked down now, but is still supposed to be fun.  Super Mega Mommy would be bored out of her skull, so maybe it'll just be and the kids running around.

I also learned awhile back that ANOTHER base near us is trying to get in the running to receive one of the soon to be retired space shuttles, so woohoo, my little nerd brain gets all atwitter with the possibilities.  The only thing that could be better would be getting a Star Wars and Star Trek museum opened up in town and opening up my very own Best Buy!