I wanted to be a spaceman

When I was young, I seriously wanted a Major Matt Mason action figure.  I thought this was the coolest thing EVER!

I loved the way the joints were accordion-bellows which just made sense to me. His hover cart was so realistic to me.

I thought this was way better than G.I.Joe Astronaut with space capsule which even came with a 45 record of an actual spaceflight communication.

Sadly, I never did find either under the tree at Christmas… because ‘boys don’t play with dolls’.

I was content visited with friends who had either one.

As a ten year old, space travel was real… we had just put a man on the moon! I was fascinated by all things NASA and dreamed of how cool it would be to be an Astronaut.  My dream job… Astronaut was my answer to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” This dream was squashed by my 6th grade teacher who reasoned that they didn’t get paid much, and I would be better to become an airline pilot. (I don’t really know why we had that conversation, but I think it was related to a presentation I had given the class about the history of flight from Kitty Hawk to the SST.)

Recently I was thinking about all of this when I was asked what my deep desire is. I told my Mastermind group about all this and I was reminded about Elon Musk’s announcement the program to put a colony on Mars, and Virgin Galactic already signing people up for vacation trips to space. It is actually not impossible!

I still have spaceman longing… For now, I will see if I can track this place down…