Christmas Gift Show-and-Tell!

First of all, I never did find out who sent me the message from Santa Claus in my last entry, and no, I did not get a space shuttle for Christmas.  Having said that, however, I did get some absolutely amazing space stuff from Hubby!

First of all, The Book: a first edition of Encounter With Tiber, signed by Buzz Aldrin.  Buzz Aldrin is my favourite Apollo astronaut and was the second man to walk on the moon.  (He went down the ladder after Neil Armstrong.)  Hubby said that he knew that I wasn't really a science fiction fan, but figured that wouldn't matter in this case.  And he was right! :)



And then, if that gift didn't make me giddy enough, Hubby handed me The Most Amazing Gift Ever!  No, readers, he didn't give me a space shuttle, but he gave me an actual piece of the Apollo 10 Command Module! (Can you hear me shrieking still?)

The Apollo 10 mission, for those who might not be space cadets like me, was the dress rehearsal for the Apollo 11 moon landing.  Apollo 10 did everything Apollo 11 did, except for the actual lunar landing.  I now have something in my possession that actually orbited the moon -- and it completely blows my mind.

The command module for Apollo 10 was nicknamed Charlie Brown (the lunar module was nicknamed Snoopy), and the piece I have is a fragment of the coldplate computer shielding.  It's about the size of my thumbnail, but I can't tell you how cool it is to be able to touch part of a spacecraft, especially one that was instrumental in landing on the moon.


Incidentally, the pilot of the Command Module was John W. Young, who went on to command the very first space shuttle flight.  (And we all know how I feel about the space shuttle!)