by Shannon Penrod
“Welcome to Disneyland for Geeks!” That’s what the tour guide said as he opened the door to the “Dark Room” at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab today. Once a year they hold an open house and this year for the first time guests were allowed to enter the mission control room. My son and I were part of the 30,000 people who stood in line for hours this weekend to see the magic up close and personal. I
t was cool.
It was amazing to see the slice of humanity that showed up to see this unique spectacle. There were new-born babies and seniors with walkers. There were teenagers in Goth gear and young couples, race, nationality and ethnicity was represented. There we all were, sharing a similar passion – SPACE. So we all stood in line, and stood in line some more. Oye! There was a lot of standing in line! But I have to say, the wait was worth it.
I stood with my son and looked down into the clean room where the Mars Laboratory Rover 
“Curiosity” sat waiting to be shipped to Cape Canaveral for a lift off in September and an August 2010 arrival on Mars. We saw it, the actual rover, not a model, not a fabrication….the real deal. When that rocket takes off later this year my son and I will feel a connection; that’s something that money can’t buy.
Since he could speak in sentences my son has said that when he grows up he wants to be a rocket engineer. As we walked through the halls of JPL I asked him is he thought he might work here one day. He not only told me that he would, he told me where he thought his office would be. I took a picture of it. Someday I plan to visit him in that office. Hopefully Moms of rocket engineers don’t have to stand in line
to see their kid’s offices!
We ended the day by watching a beautiful film that was narrated by Harrison Ford. He closed the film by reminding us that we are all made of star-dust. That alone was worth standing in line.
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