Here are some of mine:

When I was at Disney, the coolest project I worked on was a promotion that put a Buzz Lightyear figure on the Space Shuttle Discovery mission STS-124 in 2009. I worked on several aspects of the program with my colleagues at Disney Parks Public Relations; Geoffrey Pointon, Todd Heiden and Duncan Wardle.

My core responsibility was managing the development of some Buzz Lightyear games that would be published in the Kids’ Club area of NASA’s website.

Photo by Gary Buchanan

This was an honor for this lifelong space freak. I worked with a NASA educational team based in Washington DC and content developers from Disney Institute to create the content of the games and I worked with a development company to create the design.

When it was time for the games and the Space Shuttle to launch, I got spent time in the NASA Media Center for a few days to demonstrate the application to journalists from around the world. Of course when the Shuttle launched I got to experience that too, from within 3 miles of the craft.

The Grandstand at the Apollo/Saturn V Center had a party atmosphere.

I took my Dad to his first launch experience when we went to see Discovery mission STS-131 blast off in April 2010. We woke up at 1:00 am so we could get the bus from Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex to one of my favorite places, the Apollo/Saturn V Center, by 4:00 am. The rocket hangar had a party atmosphere as everyone got their breakfast and passed the time looking at the monuments to man’s great voyage to the Moon.

The Discovery launched at 6:21 just before the break of dawn.

The early rise was worth the experience of what must have been one of the most beautiful launches in Space Shuttle history. The International Space Station magically floated over our heads and in about 20 minutes, the Shuttle rose to follow it’s path. Moments after the launch, dawn broke to paint the sky a deep blue and the Shuttle’s contrail orange, pink and white neon.

STS 131 contrail illuminated by the rising sun

I took one more trip to NASA to see a Shuttle Launch on another assignment related to the Buzz Lightyear project and was able to capture this video of the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis mission STS-132 from in front of the historic countdown clock.

Man will continue to explore space. Voyager enlightens us, as it continues it’s mission at the edge of our Solar System. So if you believe in space exploration like I do, just remember that we are out there. We’re on Voyager, on Phoenix and on every other probe that has ever been sent into the cosmos. I’m confident and hopeful that human space exploration will return soon to the United States.

“The surface of the Earth is the shore of the cosmic ocean. On this shore we’ve learned most of what we know. Recently we’ve have waded a little way out, maybe ankle deep, and the water seems inviting. Some part of our being knows, this is where we came from. We long to return.” – Carl Sagan – Quote Source

Olmert presents a hypothesis that wolf domestication was a catalyst for the dawn of civilization. Trustful bonds with wolves allowed early humans to sleep the whole night. They trusted their wolf friends to alert them to danger with their bark. Deep sleep, which scientists say is connected to processing information and learning, may have spurred an environment of creativity and innovation.

Both you and your dog get a hit of oxytocin when you pet them. Its drug-like effect tames the animals by masking their fight-or-flight instinct making oxytocin responsible for human-pet relations through the aeons.

Listen to this interview with Meg about the human animal bond on KERA’s Think! podcast. [iTunes link]

(Note: I haven’t read the book. I used the interview as the basis of this post.)

Related links:

• Meg Daley Olmert interview on Salon.com
• Meg Daley Olmert’s blog on Psychology Today

The touching story starts at 3:50 and goes to 18:30 just so you know what you are signing up for when you click “play”. And I sincerely hope you will because its a true animal story unlike any you’ve ever heard.

Link to the full show, notes and comments.