Thirty years ago this week, I stood in a classroom surrounded by dozens of other 12 year olds and tried to wipe the tears away before someone else saw them. The Challenger disaster was one of the most seminal and emotional moments of my generation.

This week, thinking back, I’ve thought about how life-affirming it can be to share and let emotion spill out, and how keeping it in can make it so much harder. So some tears have come this week in remembering that still visceral moment.

Coincidently, this was our week to visit NASA’s Johnson Space Center and talk with American astronaut Reid Wiseman. We wanted to talk to Reid about his time in space, his concept of courage, and his amazing perspective (both emotional and visual–check out his incredible photos and videos from space by following him @astro_reid on Twitter.)

In this 3MS, you’ll see how the spirit of imagination and wonder that is so deeply, deeply human drives Reid, and continues to drive the amazing people in our space program. We couldn’t think of a better tribute to those who went before.

We typically feature people on 3-Minute Storyteller who are living courageous lives.

And though living courageously sometimes FEELS like you are on top of a rocket hurtling into the unknown, less than 600 people in the history of our planet have actually left it.

This is fun conversation with NASA – National Aeronautics and Space Administration Astronaut Reid Wiseman where he talks about what that fear feels like. And as you saw in part one of our talk, Reid has great perspective on exploration:

“Well, I made it this far . . .”

It’s a pretty good metaphor for the rest of us.