Well actually I don't want to be an astronaut, I want to be like one-- especially if that astronaut is Pam Melroy. Thursday evening Tom and I went to a dinner at the Boston Museum of Science hosted by our FairerScience partner Wellesley Centers for Research on Women .

Pam, a member of the Wellesley College Board of Trustees, was the speaker. We got a chance to speak with her before the dinner and she was fabulous-- interesting, thoughtful and very, very smart. Tom asked her an intelligent question about any concerns she might have about using the Russian Soyuz to travel back and forth to the space station after the shuttle was retired. I, on the other hand, asked her what the coolest things were about being in space.

She said there were many things including feeling like a little kid whose dream has come true because you can fly. She spoke of the importance of having music while she was in space and about the differences between her first, second and third missions (she was the commander of the third). During her after dinner speech she showed home movies from space and spoke about leadership and how to establish the culture she wanted for the crew (spoiler alter-- it included taking the crew on a 10 day kayak where they kayaked many miles each day).

The food was good, the company was better and we got an autographed picture and some astronaut ice cream-- hey it doesn't get much better than that!