Producers Chad Campbell, Geoffrey Redick and I were at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral for the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour, which is now on a 16-day mission at the International Space Station. You’ll hear the fruits of our trip to Florida on this weekend’s Bob Edwards Weekend and Monday, November 24th on The Bob Edwards Show. By the way, STS-126 is NASA’s mission designation for this flight of Endavour. STS is short for Space Transportation System. 

It’s impossible to work in satellite radio and not feel a debt to the space program, but satellites have been important throughout my career. In 1980, my previous employer, NPR became the the first broadcast network in either radio or TV to distribute all its programs to stations by satellite. At the end of the first Persian Gulf War, I did my first interview by satellite telephone. My guest was in Baghdad, a place where phone lines were atrocious—-but the satphone made him sound like he was in the same room with me. The future had arrived and the world was suddenly a smaller place.