I love rockets.
I love rockets because they are shiny, and bright, and loud.
I love rockets because with every launch they carry humanity’s hopes and dreams and future a little bit closer to the stars.
I love rockets because they are a technology born of conflict and strife, subverted to serve science and knowledge and progress; and if there is still a hint of the stench of war lingering about them, it is only because humanity hasn’t finished growing up yet.
I love rockets because they are beautiful.
I love rockets because they shine with starlight and moonlight and the best kind of fire: propellant and oxidizer and the hunger to be better, to go further, to become more.
I love rockets because they whine and roar as they tear themselves away from our tiny little rock and hurl themselves screaming into the great icy darkness of Out There that no human may truly touch.
I love rockets because they are a symbol of what humanity might accomplish, if it tries hard enough – and the reality of what does happen, when we do.
I love rockets because they represent a dream, a goal, an urgent need that has been with us since we first came to be: since our eyes first gazed out at the distant horizon and caused our minds to wonder what we might find there, if we cared enough to go find out.
I love rockets because they are a tomorrow I may never see or touch, but every time one launches I know that tomorrow is a little bit closer than it was yesterday.
I love rockets because perhaps tomorrow will be beautiful, too.
I love rockets because each launch is the best rock concert I have ever attended.
I love rockets because they tore me out of a mundane trajectory and launched me toward a world that is more perfectly nominal than any I could have imagined.
I love rockets because all my friends are here, too.
I love rockets because I am a Launch Rat. I am a Launch Rat because I love rockets.
I love rockets. Because.
Falcon Heavy on LC-39A prior to its debut launch. Photographed by Julia (who also loves rockets)