Please give a warm welcome, to my friend, Laura Benjamin, today’s guest blogger. Laura, is a;
Interpersonal communication consulting, website and career coach, facilitator and professional public speaker. A veteran-owned, woman-owned Colorado small business, and, she hunts, although not while sporting a stylin’ beehive hairdo, that’s my Aunt Billie, may she rest in peace.
First Impressions and Familiarity – Seeing Space from the Stories of a Shuttle Commander
We humans! We so easily judge and form first impressions about people and things. While it’s a positive attribute because it often keeps us safe – as in avoiding dangerous situations – it’s amazing how many times we barely skim the surface before jumping to a conclusion. Other times, we get so used to the sights and sounds around us that we think we’ve seen it all and wrongly assume there’s nothing left to learn!
Last night I attended the Annual Tourism Awards Banquet hosted by the Colorado Springs Convention and Visitor’s Bureau (www.experiencecoloradosprings.com ) A number of small to large companies were in attendance, there was the silent auction, the decorations, a great space related theme and a former astronaut as speaker - Brian Duffy (Colonel, USAF, Retired)
His presentation about the 100th Space Shuttle Mission, which he commanded, was spellbinding! Now, we’ve all watched the images on TV, read the newspaper articles and heard the reports about these Space Shuttle missions. In fact, I believe we’ve grown so accustomed to hearing about them that it’s no longer “news”.
But oh contraire! From this humble, friendly, down-to-earth gentleman (pun intended), we were treated last night to a whole new perspective to the relationship between earth, space and one another. His stories, often humorous, gave us insights that rarely show up on the news.
For example, Colonel Duffy was able to see Fenway Park in Boston MA from the Space Shuttle and then estimated the location of his son’s college fraternity house. At the same time, his son and college buddies were out on the roof looking up at the sky watching the slowly moving light that contained his Dad and crew. You could see the emotion peek through as he related this story, flashed the photos on the screen and remembered the moment he looked down on his son from such a distance.
One of the crew members was a woman from my hometown in Rochester, N.Y. I don’t even know the lady, but the fact she came from Rochester made me beam with pride. To think that someone from where I grew up could achieve this accomplishment at such a young age!
A photo of the entire crew “sitting down” to a meal together (i.e. floating in close proximity to fit within the photo frame) gave us a glimpse of the camaraderie they’d established during the two years of pre-launch preparation and the weeks they spent in space. More humorous comments followed about the unmentionable items that occasionally float on by which no one wants to claim!
Ironically, the novelty of it all wore off for them after weeks of traveling 5 miles per second (you’re reading that correctly). He said that after 500 or so times flying around the earth, you get pretty used to seeing spectacular sights whiz on by. With a grin he panned, “Oh yeah, there goes Antarctica again.”
Yes, we humans are not only good at forming first impressions, but we also allow familiarity to blunt our sense of curiosity. I’m looking at the sky a little differently today. I hope you’ll take the opportunity to revisit the wonders around us, both above and here on planet earth!
Laura Benjamin
Here are some photos, a story and links to interactive tours of the Space Shuttle and the Space Station that you can insert along with this blog post: http://archives.cnn.com/2000/TECH/space/09/29/shuttle.preview/
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