When I was in sixth grade, I was the captain of the space shuttle. the shuttle mission was orchestrated by my sixth grade teacher, mr. K, who, built a simulator in a broom closet of our school. We spent an entire day in the shuttle simulator, as the crew executed the duties closely mirroring the reality of a NASA mission. we communicated with mr. K, who was in a make -hift mission control, via walkie talkie and learned the vocabulary of astronauts. it was the year after the Challenger disaster, and we were hit especially hard in my school, where space missions were part of the curriculum. For a time, I was committed to science and math excellence, because of my desire to travel to space. the Challenger disaster had made us that much more committed to our space program. we launched big Bertha rockets from the playground, and from the grassy hill, we dreamed of floating amongst the stars.
After all these years, I haven’t been to space and I still don’t have my motorcycle license, but I think this video tribute to the space shuttle from motorcycle Aprilia captures the wanderlust of speed and sky from the ground up.
