If you have 5 and a half minutes, listen to this. If you don't have 5 and a half minutes, make them and listen anyway.
from YouTube
In January of 1997 I was listening to Car Talk on NPR and driving West on I-44 in Oklahoma City, coming up to the Lincoln Avenue exit when Tom and Ray Maggliaozzi got the above telephone call.
LIVE! That's right John Grunsfeld was talking to them as I was listening. I was hearing a conversation between two men in Boston, Massachusettes, and a man in space as it happened.
Okay, no big deal today. And the broadcast from Boston wasn't too big a deal then. But from the Space Shuttle on its way to MIR. That was a big deal.
Forty years earlier, the Russians put Sputnik into low earth orbit. I was in the fourth grade, too young to worry about the security of the United States. But the fact that that very small, man made satellite was up there fired my imagination. I spent a lot of my spare time drawing space stations and imagining what living in space would be like. Imagining. Imagining.
And then people started actually going into space. Alan Shephard was the first American and, of course, I knew he would be the first because he was a Navy man and my daddy was in the Navy. And I thought that by the time I was old enough to do it myself, living in space would be a reality. I thought there would be regular folks living in space. I still believe that's the future for humanity. I don't know if I'll live long enough to see that, but I'll never forget that "regular sounding" phone call to the Tappet Brothers.
Thank you Tom. And Ray. You made me laugh out loud. You made me sit in the car after I'd gotten where I wanted to go just so I could listen to the rest of your show. And you made me listen to Country and Western music. Who knew they even had C&W way up there in Boston? I'll miss you, Tommy. My thoughts are with Ray and your family and all your NPR fans.
And I promise I won't drive like your brother.
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