Houston, we have a sunburn.

While we were in Florida, I was lucky enough to get to see the shuttle launch as well. From what I understand, there are only a limited number of launches left that are scheduled to take place. Beyond that, their program has a bit of a murky future.

I guess I can understand that people nowadays have different priorities when it comes to how our tax dollars are spent. It seems to me, however, that blasting a few lucky folks into space to learn more about the universe we live in is alot more productive use of my money than shipping thousands of un-lucky young Americans off to get injured or killed in a foreign land that just so happens to have oil resources. But I suppose that's a topic for another type of blog entry.

In the meanwhile, look at the pretty pictures of the launch!

The crowd forming in anticipation of the launch...later they'd form a line at Walgreens looking for Aloe Vera gel.

A picture of someone taking a picture of the initial blastoff.

Someone in the crowd said they could see the boosters separating. I could barely see that there was something in front of all that smoke.

Look! Up in the sky! It's a...um...smoke plume.

Looks kinda pretty, don't it?