We are all traveling through space together on this beautiful blue marble – Spaceship Earth. All of us except the astronauts now on the International Space Station. Unless you’ve been living under a rock (which is possible during this pandemic) you probably heard that a civilian-made spaceship took 4 astronauts up to the ISS in a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, which docked Monday night. This crew included the first black man to stay and live on the space station. It seems impossible that it took this long, but now it has finally happened.
As it turns out, I have met this astronaut, thanks to the eQuilter charity program and our support of the Johnson Space Center/NASA chapter of Engineers Without Borders. In fact in 2015 Victor Glover was our tour guide when I visited the ISS Mission Control in Houston. I share this with you, because you are part of this connection.
Your support of eQuilter and the 2% of sales donated to nonprofit organizations, allowed me to also meet ISS astronaut Ron Garan 10 years ago. eQuilter’s comfort quilt relief project following the Japan tsunami was actually discussed between Mission Control and the ISS, while Ron was on his extended mission up there. True story! Working with Mission of Love, we collected and MOL distributed 2500 of your comfort quilts to earthquake victims just 4 months after the tsunami. Amazing.
Did you know there are apps that will tell you when the ISS is flying overhead, so you can run outside and track the station gliding across the sky? Many years ago I was having dinner in Houston with EWB friends, when suddenly the rocket scientists jumped up and ran out to the parking lot. The app told us when and where the ISS would appear, and sure enough, it showed up right on time and moved like a bright star in a steady trace across the dark sky.
When I was in South Africa with Carolyn Mazloomi’s guild, we visited a rural township, a shantytown out in the countryside. We spent an afternoon at an after-school program for AIDS orphans. They asked if I would speak to the older children. There were about 150 teenagers in their matching blue and white school uniforms, who gathered in a circle to hear me speak. What could I possibly say to them?
I told them about the International Space Station. I described to them how they could identify the ISS moving across the night sky. They had never heard about the station. They could hardly believe that humans had been living in space for so many years. You could have heard a pin drop. I encouraged them to make their education their first priority, and to dream big. When I finished they clustered around me, their big eyes moist with emotion. My eyes were pretty wet too. It was hard to say goodbye. As I left, I made a donation to the student center, on behalf of eQuilter. Wherever I go, you are always with me, and together we can make a difference. Thank you for supporting our family-owned company, our charity program, and our efforts to help those in need.
with hope for the future…
Luana and Paul
p.s. The Dragon rocketship blasted off with a Baby Yoda tethered to the dashboard, as the ‘zero gravity indicator’. Baby Yoda is now floating around the ISS, orbiting the Earth at 15,500 mph.
