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Day 74: Back in love with NASA

What I'm watching today

The Lovebirds (2020, Netflix streaming) - The bottom line is that I was entertained. This is your standard romantic chase comedy. I can't recall the names of any others, but I believe Ashton Kutcher starred in a bunch of these in the early 2000s. Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani star as the titular lovebirds who accidentally find themselves on the run from murderers and police. But the heart of the story is about communication between two people who have fallen out of love. Rather than share their feelings, each of these two people communicates like they are performing a live show for an audience seated just behind the other. In other words, they talk at each other instead of to each other. There is a sort of one-upmanship about it as well, like it's a competition to be funny but not reach out. The ending of the movie was pretty transparent, but I enjoyed it nonetheless, and I've ranked this film in the top half of my 2020 picks so far.

What I'm doing today

Watching - At a little after 1:00PM the whole family gathered around the TV to watch the first manned space crew to launch from US soil since the cancellation of the space shuttle program 9 years ago. We watched with anticipation as the Crew Dragon capsule, sitting atop the Falcon 9 rocket, lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center. There are three memorable launches in my lifetime that I can recall with detail. Obviously the Challenger disaster when I was in second grade is first. The second was the Discovery mission in 1988 when NASA resumed shuttle missions. (I can still recite the words the mission commander spoke as Discovery lifted off the pad.) And today's launch is #3. The high definition live video feed from the launch pad, inside the capsule, at the landing pad for the recovery of the rocket, and on the exterior of the payload was absolutely stunning. The 8yo, failing to grasp the importance of the moment settled for awesomeness of the science:

8yo: What's the big deal?
Me: They just went from the surface of the earth to space in less time than it takes us to walk across the street to the park.
8yo: Whoa.

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