Last weekend I ran across an episode of When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions and was... awestruck, completely and utterly dumbfounded... even as I (slowly) write this blog post I have to do so only during the commercials because the footage is incredible.

I've seen plenty of old NASA footage... but some of this material is just... unbelievably beautiful.

If you've got even a passing interest in the space program and access to the Discovery Channel (or Discovery HD (oh how I wish I had it))... take a watch of an hour of this program. You don't watch it for the commentary from those involved (the likes of which you've probably seen before)... but for the 'never before seen' footage.

Why the interest? In part when I was young I dreamed of being an astronaut... until I realized that given my likely height and genes (my dad being 6'3.5" and me now being a solid 6'4") that my chances were pretty nil (despite Jim Wetherbee).

At the same time I think that its a shame that this country doesn't have an a competent ideological rival who we are racing to the moon or beyond as frankly... I don't think Islamic terrorists are likely to develop a space program.

That all being said... there is a part of me that is tempted to pick up a Blu-ray player and the Blu-ray disks of the series... though it is worth nothing that my birthday is July 12 :)

Read the complete post at http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/IHateLinux/~3/312814664/when-we-left-earth-nasa-missions.html