Why Do I love NASA?

I Don't know why I love stories about NASA going in to space. Stories that will grind to a halt at the end of 2010.  This is officially the 131st space flight of the Shuttle program. Maybe the wonder of it all was instilled in me as a child...  often getting a break from school just to watch the shuttle blast off into space. Maybe it's the NASCAR effect (buy a ticket and wait for a big crash). Or maybe its the hopes and dreams of a generation to be able to travel at the speed of light. I mean, our movies, our sci-fi television programs are filled with stories to fulfill this desire to investigate what is out there in the deep black void of space.  Whatever combination of these it is.. I keep watching... thinking about it every time I fly or find myself under a starlit sky.

Discovery, the next space shuttle scheduled to fly to the International Space Station, was hoisted and attached to its external fuel tank and twin solid rocket boosters on Feb. 22 and 23 in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Fla. A seven-member international crew commanded by astronaut Alan Poindexter will deliver a multi-purpose logistics module filled with science racks to be transferred to the space station's laboratories. STS-131 is targeted to begin with a liftoff from Kennedy's Launch Pad 39A Fla. on Apr. 5 at 6:19 am EST.