I closed my book, and turned from the muted Weather Channel to NBC's Meet the Press just in time to hear Tim Russert announce that, in effect, "space" would be the subject of the program. I'm telling you, I'm sick of "spacey" so-called news programs. I'd rather watch a service "technician" change the oil in my Explorer than see a phoney news (trivia in newsdrag) "show" on TV. Photographing the inside of the shuttle for the umpteenth time, and adding a monotonous commentary about pictures we've seen a thousand times, isn't news. Blasting off, that's news. Landing, that's news. Blowing up on the way, that's news. And, landing without blowing up, this time, will be news. Coverage of the day to day life of the crew in space is dreadfully mundane, thus not news. The fact that the EPA (goaded by the Tree Huggers) prohibited the use of Freon-based foam insulation on the last two shuttles' booster rockets, in favor of non-Freon based, and thus dangerously more fragile, foam is news. Many of you are probably reading that little tidbit of information for the first time, that makes it news to you. Foam didn't break off during one hundred-forty earlier flights. Shuttle disasters began when they started using EPA approved "Freon free" insulation, that too is news. But the Tree Huggers' (better known as the crazy socialist deflowers of the EPA, Sierra Club, and Audubon Society) biggest pillage is that of making our nation energy-dependent on foreigners. EPA's regulations preventing the use of our own natural resources are the root causes of our soldiers being in Iraq today. It ain't about "spreading democracy to the world" folks. It's about oil. We must have oil from the Middle East right now, or face ruin. That's the result of the EPA and the Tree Huggers going mad. We are awash in "energy" sources in this country. But that, and the resultant "economic rape" of the American consumer by our own oil companies, is another column.

Anyway, the only good result of non-news "news shows" about the shuttle is that it keeps bush fires and draining Aruban swamps off TV news, or at least minimizes them. By the way, there's no need at all in having manned space flights, because experts tell us that we could send computerized experimental equipment to do most of the studies without humans being present in space. The exception is in the study of new products that astronauts test for future use on earth, such as "Depends" and other portable-body-attachable-potty-product-containers that astronauts use. And, I admit, such products grow more attractive to me each time I have a night when I get up more than once for a trip to the bathroom. I don't mind getting up so much as I dislike false alarms. I was in the bathroom early one morning last week (if you can't stand the truth, skip to the next paragraph now) sleepily staring at an appropriate bathroom fixture, and I was shocked (as you might be if you keep reading) when I heard myself loudly complain, "You're the one who wanted to come in here?"

I really haven't been seriously excited about a space flight since Apollo II's trip to the moon.

I remember exactly where I was on that July 20, 1969, moon landing. A colleague and friend of mine, who was an RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, without a red coat and Rin Tin Tin) foreign service officer, and I had left the touristy and historic Hofbrauhaus (Munich's huge beer hall) for a short walk to an authentic Bavarian restaurant. We discovered that the restaurant/bar had placed TV sets, much like a modern sports bar today, around the big room for the expected moon landing. The place was packed. As is the custom in Germany, when there are no empty tables in a restaurant, one can ask, "Gibt es ein Platz frei?" (Is this seat free?), and then take a seat at a table not yet fully occupied. Tradition dictates that one doesn't introduce himself nor take part in conversation at such a table, unless those there first initiate the conversation. If that goes well, then introductions are often made.

There soon came the electric moment when Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins made it to the moon. There was huge cheering in the sizable restaurant filled with Germans? My Canadian colleague asked quietly through the bedlam, "Why are the Germans cheering Americans?" They weren't. They were cheering their fellow Germans. To them, the heros of the evening were the German rocket scientists (most of whom were young ex-Nazis) in the United States who had made the whole thing technically possible. My friend hadn't been in Germany long enough to have heard the joke, "Who will be first to the moon, the Americans or the Russians?" The Germans would gleefully answer, "The ones who captured the most brilliant of our scientists!" After the landing and cheering, the older, and well-dressed, apparently well off, German men and women at the table introduced themselves, bought us drinks, and were apparently astounded that we both spoke German. They would have been more astounded if they had known that the young (we were both youngish then) Canadian spoke most of the European languages perfectly, and was a member of a team sent to Germany and Austria seeking information on Nazis who had slipped into Canada as "innocents" after WW II. The most notable ex-Nazis in Canada were to be found in Calgary, Edmonton, and Toronto.

I remember telling my Bavarian table mates that I had a childhood friend and classmate who was a renowned plastic surgeon in Huntsville, Alabama, the American home of their most famous rocket scientist, the "ex-Nazi" Werner von Braun. The free drinks and the conversation dried up after my deliberate phrase, "ex-Nazi" Werner von Braun. The moon landing was a distinctly American moment, I'd be dammed if I'd let the Germans capture it. The moment belonged to America, to me, and to the thousands of American soldiers in Germany, saving German butts from the Russians.

Laughing, my friend said to me, as I was getting out of the taxi at my hotel, "Kinchen, why is it you like everything about Germany, except the Germans?" That's not true, then nor now. After all, I have an aging, retired RCMP, friend who rejoices now days in being a German/Canadian grandfather, to a bunch of German/Canadian kraut-gulpers? I'll decide who's a "worthy" German, case by case. But, of course, that's not "news" either.

Kenneth Kinchen is an independent writer with a background in international business and foreign service contracting.