#the interregnum

*88th

So far the only astronaut to be born on Leap Day, Jack R. Lousma was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on February 29, 1936. He was selected as an astronaut at age 7 (30), worked in Mission Control during the Apollo 13 crisis at age 8 (34), made his first spaceflight to the Skylab space station at age 9 (37), and piloted the space shuttle at age 11 (47)!

In 2016, aged 20 (80), he shared 29 facts about his life and career with the Detroit Free Press.

The Time of Apollo (1975)

Skylab: High School in Space

Image: Neon sign, "CHANGE" / Felix Burton / Wikimedia Commons (orig. Flickr) / CC BY 2.0

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Cultural Metamorphosis

“Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs a sharp transformation. Within a few short decades, society – its worldview, its basic values, its social and political structures, its art, its key institutions – rearranges itself. We are currently living through such a time.”

~ Peter F. Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society (1994).

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The Interregnum

“We are living in the time of the parenthesis, the time between eras. It is as though we have bracketed off the present from both the past and the future, for we are neither here nor there ... but we have not embraced the future either. We have done the human thing: We are clinging to the known past in fear of the unknown future.”