The tragedy over the weekend reminded me that Frank Moss passed away recently. Senator Moss tried very hard to get a shuttle landing facility built in the west desert, only to lose-out to Edwards, IIRC. When I was a senior in high-school, in 1977, Senator Moss brought the entire crew of Apollo-Soyuz to Utah. They spoke at an assembly at my school, after which I presented the Soviet commander with a model of the two spacecraft linked together...I wonder if he still has it? I sketched a pen-and-ink drawing of the mission patch, and had all five crew members autograph it. I still have it today, even though I believe that 2 of the crew members have since passed-on. One of the newspapers did a small story on my presentation to Leonov, I still have a clipping. The most fortuitous part was that I filmed 4 or 5 minutes of the assembly on 8mm film, which I still have. I'd like to convert it to a digital file one of these days. Even earlier, when I was in grade school, I remember that the Apollo-11 capsule was displayed on Capitol Hill in a large touring trailer. I think I was in seventh or eighth grade, but went prepared....I had a roll of scotch tape in my pocket. Stood quietly in line, waiting my turn to view the capsule. When it came, I noted when the armed guard (!) turned away, and quickly slapped a piece of tape on the capsule. Pulling it back, I saw that some of the capsule patina had come off on my tape. I had a piece of Apollo-11! Then the guard turned back, saw what I was doing, and chased me off! Probably my most proud NASA story is that I was born on the day the agency was signed into existence (actually NACA, it's predecessor): Oct. 1, 1958. There are good memories associated with the space-program. We need to hold onto those. C. __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com