Courtesy of NASA's "Face in Space" program, the entire crew of Astronomy magazine will be aboard STS-134, the final mission of the space shuttle program, sometime in November. William Zuback photo
That said, a meeting is still a meeting. It can grow a bit routine, even a little dull. So to mix things up a bit, I secretly arranged for Bill Zuback — one of Kalmbach’s very talented photographers — to interrupt yesterday’s meeting at 10:15 in order to shoot a photo of the entire staff. (I’ll explain why in a moment.)
Like clockwork, Bill arrived, causing heads to turn, looks of surprise evident. These things just don’t happen during this meeting, after all. After confessing that I asked Bill to shoot a group photo, there were additional utterances of confusion, as well as one or two expressions of, “If I’d known, I would’ve worn something else ...” (I almost agreed with that latter comment, by the way, after I noticed that Dave Eicher and Bill Andrews apparently called each other the night before and agreed to wear practically the same outfit.)
In short order, Zuback expertly situated this boisterous, unruly group before perching atop a chair and hitting the shutter button a few times.
Once he left, I explained how NASA is doing something very cool for its two final space shuttle missions — something you can do, too. By visiting NASA’s “Face in Space” website, you can upload a photograph of yourself, and NASA will fly your image on one of the two remaining shuttle missions! (If you don’t have a photo handy, you can also just enter your name on the site.)
Shuttle mission STS-133 is scheduled to launch September 16; STS-134 should blast off in November, though the exact date has yet to be announced. Once each shuttle mission ends, you can return to this website and print a commemorative certificate, signed by the mission commander. How cool is that?
I can’t find anything specific on the website, but since submissions are all digital, I presume your “face in space” means the pictures will be on a hard drive. In other words, don’t expect to glimpse your photo taped to the inside of a shuttle bay door or anything during a video clip on the news.
Regardless, this virtually vicarious experience is as close as most of us will ever get to achieving our astronaut dreams, so visit NASA's "Face in Space" website and upload your photo today. See you on launch day for the mission briefing. You bring the Tang, I’ll bring the freeze-dried ice cream.