I recently travelled down to NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., to film a presentation by astronaut and U.S. Army Col. Timothy "T.J." Creamer. He was discussing his days onboard the International Space Station with an audience of about 40 people, all of whom follow his tweets from space. My shoot was for a piece being produced for a web site called Rocketboom.
The entire talk was fascinating, but my ears really perked up when he took a moment to discuss science fiction. Consider it: A real, live astronaut. Talking about science fiction. I'm amazed my head didn't explode. Since the bite never made it into the final Rocketboom piece, I got permission to post it here in the Attic. If you'd like to see it in glorious HD, click through to the YouTube page and select the highest resolution.
You know, I've interviewed a lot of famous people, a lot of powerful people, a lot of downright interesting people. And after all this time, I've really learned to keep my cool and remain professional whatever the situation. But standing in front of an astronaut -- and a really friendly, cool one, at that -- was pretty amazing, and I'm not embarrassed to admit that I came real close to becoming a blubbering fanboy. I held it together, but when we walked out of the shoot, I couldn't stop grinning and I'm pretty sure my correspondent was sick of me muttering under my breath, "So cool... so freakin' cool!"
You can check out the Rocketboom piece, which includes a short, but exclusive interview with Colonel Creamer, at rocketboom.com.
NASA broadcasted the entirety of the presentation live on their web site; I'm sure it's still archived there. Find it at NASA.gov.
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I know you probably won't understand this, but that's exactly how I feel coming off the Snow White Scary Adventures ride at Walt Disney World.
ReplyDeleteSometimes "becoming a blubbering fanboy" ain't so bad.
"So cool... so freakin' cool!"
Very cool indeed! Glad you had a chance to talk to meet him and talk sci-fi!!
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