There was a bar here in Clear Lake called The Outpost. In the 60's it went from a broken down stump of a shack sitting on the edge of a sweltering Texas fishing town to a broken down stump of a shack stuffed to the brim with iconic men and women who defined a generation with their amazing achievements. The Outpost is gone now, torn down in the name of progress and The Webster Bypass, an elevated road designed to make it easier for the dwindling numbers of NASA employees to commute to work every day. When I was a kid though, it was a magical place, its walls were plastered with maps and charts and pictures of the bravest of the brave. Heroes who challenged the highest frontiers then came back to share a drink and stories with those of us who could only watch it teary-eyed awe. They would saunter in and smile broadly, grab a seat and pour from aged plastic pitchers and start every story with "Son, did I ever tell you about the time we..." And then nothing else in the world mattered. The stories were compelling, amazing, mind-numbing, and occasionally exaggerated for laughs. They weren't all about space as these men had lives on the ground, but steering the conversation back toward "What was it like?" was easy enough. I think this is hitting me extra hard today because it seems like all of the men I met and idolized in those golden days of youthful summers are leaving for their next adventure and I'll never get to hear those stories. When I wasn't in Clear Lake I lived in Melbourne with my mom, a scant few miles from Cape Canaveral or Kennedy depending on when and where you were born, and every time I go back the monumental rockets that lined US-1 are disappearing, being taken down from their static displays in the name of cost savings don't you know. Still, amid all of this, I stay hopeful because that's what the space program represents. Hope. Hope that we'll leave our cradle and venture out to the stars. Hope that we'll be able to solve the problems of poverty and hunger, war and disease, and maybe even despair itself. Hope that one day, our sons and daughters will look down on this world from orbit and remember us fondly, their ancestors who so crudely hobbled to where they effortlessly spend every day.