ISS and the meaning of Life

11pm, everybody watching TV, wife asks if I want the buttons. I say, "No thanks, I'm going out shortly to see if I can see the ISS".

11.30 kids gone to bed wife watching CSI. I retire to the deck.

11.55 eldest daughter (a very bright 13 year old) comes out in pyjamas, says she can't sleep and asks what I'm doing. I give her a pair of binos and begin to explain how to focus them and where to look for the ISS.

11.58 right on schedule, a bright golfball appears and scoots across the sky. We both forget the binos and just watch, gobsmacked!

An hour later (I got her a coat) we're still sitting there chatting about the universe, evolution, careers, science, medicine and the meaning of life.

Priceless!
NASA's expenditure may be huge but perhaps the benefits, aside from space exploration, are far greater than we know.

Thank you NASA, ESA and all involved.

Nice one

You can't put a price on a memory like that.

Nice:)

Sweet. A really nice little story Keenan!

You can't put a price on a memory like that.

Agreed Dave, and the great thing is, you don't even have to price it if the Americans are paying.

Seriously though, if the benefits were measured in terms of pure financial return on investment, ISS probably would never have happened.

Last night I realised that it has value beyond what beancounters can measure - value in terms of human inspiration.

And I'd guess my, and my daughter's experience is probably replicated by thousands across the globe every year. Maybe I'm getting old or maybe I gained an insight last night that I should have had years ago - an insight about the intangible value of inspiration.

I know it won't match the magic of last night but I'll be out again tonight, even if only for the memory.

No wonder tha Arts world call us a bunch of Train Spotters.

The ISS is a piece of metal.

Peter.