I think that many men and women of my generation got involved in science and technology not because of computers and video games but because of Space. The race to the moon was a big deal when I was a kid. It was a national mission.

It is kind of hard to get worked about it today for some reason. Even with two tragic accidents it seems pretty routine. The only reason the last Shuttle mission got an press was because somebody lost their toolbag up there.

The big things in technology now, are computers, (yawn) and biotechnology (“YAWN”).

Every once in a while though something comes around that ignites the imagination again. For me it came from the most unlikely source: the Reading Adventures blog. She has an advent calender type thing going which I don’t really understand but it led to a link that literally made my jaw drop. Its a Boston Globe newspaper web feature called the Big Picture which is about news in pictures. They have an ongoing advent feature on photographs from the Hubble Telescope. It is awesome stuff. Show your kids!

Space science has been transformed since I last paid attention from the static to the dynamic. It used to be hey, this galaxy is 50 gazillion light years from us (yawn) to hey look at this star exploding (WOW, look at the pictures), this galaxy has such a strong gravitational field that it is acting as a lens to look at other galaxys (Huh, what’s that all about?)

If you have kids, give them a look, who knows what may happen. Little girls also. When I lived in Houston I was acquainted with three engineers who worked at NASA. Two of them were women.