One of my early influences

I've always been a huge proponent of space flight, particularly manned space flight.  And one of my great disappointments with NASA is that if they're working toward making it possible for me (or, more likely, my daughter) to be able to go, then they're hiding that quite well when it's what they should be selling.

I grew up during Apollo.  I watched the first men go to the moon.  I watched the last men go to the moon. (Dammit.)  I watched Skylab demonstrate that people could live and work in space.  And I watched the Shuttle go from a project intended to bring the cost of taking people and equipment into space to a finicky hardware system that had to be nearly rebuilt after every flight costing more per pound delivered to orbit than Apollo.

But there was more than just the "Moon race" that captivated me.  There was a book.  It was my favorite book in late first, early second grade.  It was the reason that I stated unequivocally back then that "black is my favorite color."  For a long, long time I was trying to find that book.  I identified some of the pictures from it, pictures I found in a different context, but not that book.

Well, thanks to a friend's posting on FaceBook, I found the book.  I found it, and I am going to own it.  The book is "You Will Go to the Moon" by Mae and Ira Freeman.