I have always been a huge "space geek"! I love everything about it! And it all started when I was a child.
When I was younger, my grandparents and godparents lived in Florida and I would usually spend most of my summers with them, which is why the Florida heat doesn't really bother me that much!
Anyway, one of the places they took me was to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
I don't quite remember the exact year, but it was sometime in the mid to late 1970's.
I remember riding into the complex and being captivated by those big Saturn rockets!
And back then, when you went on a tour of the facility, they actually let you into the Vehicle Assembly Building, which is that enormous building where all of the pre-manufactured components get put together to build a rocket! It's actually the largest one-story building in the world at 526 ft. tall!
I was in my godfather arms as we walked into the building and at one point I remember the tour guide saying that what we were seeing was the early assembly of a brand new project that would launch into space as a rocket but, instead of a capsule landing in the ocean on its return to earth, it would land like a plane.
Little did I know that what I saw turned into the Space Shuttle Columbia that launched in 1981!
Anyway, this story is just a way to tell you how excited I am about today's (hopefully) launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 from the Kennedy Space Center!
It is scheduled for right around 4:30 p.m. ET and it would become the first time a first private company launches humans into space...and the first manned mission to launch from the U.S. in 9 years!
I say hopefully because it all comes down to the weather forecast. Right now, the odds that the weather will cooperate and allow the launch to happen is 40%.
So you're saying there's a chance...
Photo: Getty Images