Congratulations, Wichita State University and Kansas Cosmosphere

What a Week!

On the launch of its first space satellite. Called SNAPPY, it measures solar particles. The story, including the launch, is above. 

And, the signs went up on this nationally innovative project.  Between the this first-of-its-kind blending of how doctors, nurses and those in the field of medical technology are educated; the University of Kansas Medical School, and the Kansas School of Osteopathic Medicine, Wichita is becoming quite the center of medical innovation. 

And, 40 miles northwest of Wichita -- "The best space museum in the world!" Really.

It is pretty impressive when the Administrator of NASA and the astronauts give you that type of endorsement. 

The Cosmosphere has always been a plucky, overachieving institution. When they used a loophole to get their Gemini capsule, they spirited it away from Houston -- the second it was legally theirs -- on the back of a flatbed truck borrowed from the local agricultural company. 

They spent the night on the way back in a motel in Ardmore, Oklahoma. Next morning, a large crowd had gathered around the truck in the parking lot. One of the Cosmo people got some paint and a large piece of cardboard. Under "Hutchinson Feed & Seed" they added, "Aerospace Division." 

It always bothered them that they had the real Apollo 13 and a flown Gemini capsule but no Mercury capsule. The only one left was Gus Grissom's on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. So, they decided locate (no one knew exactly where it was) and raise it. An absolutely amazing accomplishment. 

Kansas is an terrific place and the Wichita area is a cool yet inexpensive place to live.