Christmas at NASA
After a 15 hour day that began with a three hour meeting and ended with a six hour software testing session that required sending 67 pages of commands. I thought I’d take a walk through the grove, before driving home.
Near the entrance of the Johnson Space Center there is a grove of trees. Each tree was planted to memorialize an astronaut that has died. There were just a few trees when I started, but it has steadily grown as we get farther from NASA’s beginnings. At the base of each tree is a plaque naming the astronaut. At Christmas, the trees are wrapped in lights. It’s quite pretty and can be seen by anyone driving past NASA on the public road.
All of the trees are wrapped in white lights, except for one. There was one astronaut that was known to be too colorful for white lights. In fact, his motto was “If you can’t be good, be colorful.” He flew on Gemini V, Gemini XI, walked on the moon on Apollo 12, and served on America’s first space station on Skylab II. His name was Charles Conrad Jr., but everyone called him Pete. Pete died in 1999, at the age of 69, due to injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. Pete’s tree is wrapped in red lights.
Our most colorful astronaut gets our most colorful tree.
It was quite nice out there, tonight. It was a nice, cool 57 degrees. The stars were out and Jupiter was as bright as can be. And the deer were wandering around campus.
JSC quietens down at Christmas. Excess civil servant vacation time expires at the end of the year, so people will be trying to use it so they don’t lose it. Quiet, but not silent. We still have a space station to operate 24/7. Tune into NASA TV and you might notice the crew have their stocking hung on the ISS. Later this week some of us that are supporting the current increment crew will be recording video holiday greetings. Hanukkah just started. The American and European crew will celebrate their Christmas on December 25th, but the Russian Christmas is almost two weeks later, on January 7th. And in between is New Years.
Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!
