Houston, we have liftoff!

My depo today was in Vero Beach, a little over an hour away.  I got there early, as always, and had a few minutes to talk with the deponent, a local doctor.  We exchanged the usual pleasantries, where you from, etc.  I mentioned I grew up on the Space Coast with the space program.  We then started talking about astronauts.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of meeting a few astronauts in my day, including Bob Crippen, a shuttle commander, and H. Schmidt, one of the Apollo astronauts.  I was the court reporter in the federal “moon rocks” case where Mr. Schmidt testified.  A case where a brilliant college student working in the space program, had the not-so-brilliant idea to steal and sell a bunch of moon rocks he and his cohorts had stolen from NASA.  At this hearing, the court was trying to establish a value of these moon rocks and H. Schmidt recounted his mission and the effort it took to bring these moon rocks back from the moon.

I am not an autograph seeker, but that was the one and only time I made sure I got out of the courtroom in time to get H. Schmidt’s John Hancock!