The Final Countdown

Well, at 10:39 a.m. EST Tuesday morning, millions of dollars are headed to space in the form of the space shuttle Discovery. As of right now, everything is still a-go. We'll see what happens at 10:30 a.m. EST. I'm not saying that I don't have faith, I'm just saying that NASA's track record is no secret. Still, according to NASA's web site, you have to be amazed by the facts they share.

- The space shuttle goes from standing still on the launch pad to going more than 17,000 miles per hour in just over 8 minutes.

- There are more than 326 million trillon gallons of water on Earth.

- Data from satellite instruments are used by fishermen to find areas where fish are most likely to be found. (So that's where all the money is going...I thought we were wasting it just for the halibut...get it?)

- At any given moment, there are 1,800 thunderstorms happening somewhere on Earth.

- Around the world, the ozone layer averages about 3 millimeters thick, about the same as two pennies stacked on top of each other.

You can watch Tuesday's launch of the Discovery live here.

The Astronaut's Prayer

"Dear Lord, please don't let us fuck up."