My name is Richard Pryor and today I’m leaving for my first trip towards space exploration. This is the first time I am attempting to keep a journal and have decided to because it will be kind of like a souvenir from my travels to “the unknown.” And it is also something I can show my children one day and be able to say “See this is what Daddy does, this is want goes on while flying up by the stars.” I have decided to write down my experiences, my feelings, and the things I see while in space. I am extremely nervous and every excited for today’s flight. Nervous because I am only the sixth person to attempt to any type of space exploration and because of how many things may go wrong, I am scared that although I have extremely intensive training under my belt that I will freeze and forget everything. But I’m sure I’m just freaking out and that everything will come to me like second nature.
I am very excited to see everything from a different point of view, to experience things that not many people get to. I also feel extremely privileged to have been chosen for this flight, it is an amazing honor. Well it’s three hours till launch time I should go prepare. Well take off could not have gone smoother, everything went perfect. My crew is amazing. couldn’t ask for a better group of guys.
Now we are orbiting the Earth for the first time. It’s beautiful up here, extremely tranquil. I wish I could stay here forever. What a gorgeous planet we have! How incredible the view is from up here the stars, the moon, the planets it’s all amazing.
But I’m anxious to get back home I to see my wife, Molly, I miss her already. It is sad that this trip is so short, only six hours orbiting around the Earth but I am hoping that I will get another chance, only longer, to experience this all again. One hour to landing I should be getting back to the controls and making our last checks before we touch down back home, I will be writing more later. Well I am home now and happy to be. The landing was a little unsteady we lost communications with the control center for a little while and got a little off track but we hung in there and we were able to get everything straighten out. What I miss most about being up there, which may sound a bit weird, was just the floating around with no gravity, it felt so felt so free, so uplifting.
I’m glad I kept this journal, it will be nice to look back onto in 10 years or so. I plan to write again if I get another incredible chance like that again.