Hubby was disappointed Wednesday when the joint NASA-Space-X launch was postponed until today due to weather. All was well at approximately 3:44 p.m. this afternoon though as engines fired and the ship streaked upward. This was an especially significant moment because of the public-private nature of the effort. The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a Crew Dragon spacecraft on its first test flight with NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken on-board to be taken to the International Space Station (ISS) as part of the  NASA’s commercial crew program. The Crew Dragon will return to a splashdown at sea later in the weekend. NASA astronauts previously went to the ISS on regular shuttle flights, but that program was discontinued in 2011, leaving only Russia capable of delivering individuals to the station. By way of quick facts, 15 nations contributed to the station that was completed between 1998 and 2011, although the station has been continuously occupied since late in 2000 with more than 230 individuals from 18 different countries spending time on it. Several years ago my sister asked us to go with her to a launch because her Swedish neighbor was finally getting to go up. He’d been training in Houston for years and part of the tour that day was watching other pieces of the ISS being assembled. Different modules and capabilities have been continuously added to it.

Anyway, Elon Musk and his Space-X teams have had failures as always happens when working in this level of technology. Today, however, if not perfect (and it may have been) accomplished the critical initial stages of the mission. Unlike Hubby, who has kept track of multiple stages leading up to this, I was not aware a woman,Gwynne Shotwell, is the President and Chief Operating Officer for Space-X. She was one of the early employees of the company and in the interview shortly before blast-off, she said she’d become accustomed to launches, but was nervous about this one.

There are thousands of individuals in hundreds of roles involved with making something like this happen; all of whom must be feeling very proud today.

The full article about this team of kids is at http://www.southdadenewsleader.com/news/h-o-t-and-partners-reach-out/article_6c8df6fa-8fb1-11ea-af1e-a36e34c9128d.html

In essence though, a fairly small number of students, (about twelve) have truly great role models of parents who are heavily involved in different community support activities. These young people have been not only watching their parents over the years, but also participating in the activities as they reached the age when they could. There is a situation here that requires its own post that I won’t go into, but has to do with students and sometimes families who literally depend on meals from schools as their primary source of food. As I said, skipping the “whys” of that, a group of people set up a system last year to help provide food on weekends and holidays. During the process, these students came together to create their mission statement. “We are a team of students that have chosen to volunteer our time for no benefit other than to serve our community of Homestead, Florida. We care for and change lives for the better while putting others before ourselves when possible. We treat our fellow teammates with respect, love, kindness, gratitude, and above all else, the same way we want to be treated. Our four target areas to assist are the hungry, children with severe medical needs, animals in need and the military. However, we are willing and prepared to serve anyone in need at a moment’s notice. We are the H.O.T.” They also took the necessary steps and were recently officially designated as a non-profit, 501(c)(3).

Yes, they have adults who help, but they do most of the work, and have been for months now. In light of the COVID-19 situation, their focus for now is food collection and distribution. This was once again a time when learning about a new group was a pleasure.

Lynyrd Skynyrd, BruceSpringsteen, and Steely Dan are among famous musicians who were once opening acts for others. Most of course don’t go on to be mega stars, but can be quite successful in their own right. Thursday, we attended the Seminole Theatre performance of Asleep at the Wheel as part of the Showcase Season. Neither of us had heard of Brennen Leigh and Hubby now has one of her CDs. Songwriter, guitar player, mandolin player, and singer, she is a two-time Texas Music Awards Best Female Vocalist and 2018 Ameripolitan Music Honky Tonk Award winner. She pairs with different people and last night was Melissa Carper who was on bass; not something you often see women play. She performs primarily with the Buffalo Gals Band and their debut album, “Brand New Old Time Songs”, came in at Number 2 on the European Americana charts in 2018. Both women have toured nationally and internationally and began their music careers fairly young. As the opening act, they provided a thoroughly entertainment stretch of music and I suspect we weren’t the only ones who purchased a CD.

Although the main show, Asleep at the Wheel, is not the kind of music for everyone, they have been around since 1970. Ray Benson, the only original member still with the band, was in fine form and the drummer, David Sanger, has thirty-five years with them. Western Swing is a combination of elements of American blues, swing and traditional fiddling even though I don’t have enough of a music background to identify how much of each element is involved. On the other hand, I don’t need to know. I’m sure that of almost 250 people in the audience, some could explain it in detail. For the rest of us, it was just a fun, lively show.

We don’t usually attend two performances in the same month, but we have been told Derina Harvey and her Celtic rock group are quite good, so we shall see about that one.