And the first flight of the tether satellite happened in '92, and I was the backup on that flight.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
And then my chance really happened in 1996 when we added the second flight of the tether satellite.
I remember the first time that I flew on an airplane overseas, it was about when I was seven; it was 1969.
I feel privileged and honored to have flown. It's been a tremendous ride, looking back on the legacy and accomplishments, like the Hubble telescope and the launching of the International Space Station in 1998.
After being once in space, I was keen to go back there. But it didn't happen.
I've been lucky enough to fly to space twice.
And then when I went to Chicago, that's when I had these outer space experiences and went to the other planets.
Two subsequent incidents of import established CNN: the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, which CNN was the only network to cover as it happened, and the 1991 Gulf War, which CNN chronicled round the clock from a proximity as irresistible as it was alarming, bomb blasts and gunfire lighting up TV screens from coast to coast.
There's a historical milestone in the fact that our Apollo 11 landing on the moon took place a mere 66 years after the Wright Brothers' first flight.
Eleven days before 9/11, I was on a plane with the 9/11 hijackers who were carrying out a dry run.
And the two planes that were taking the band and crew that we had taken out to San Diego were flying out after the show. And so I was never supposed to be on that plane.