This Astronaut From Idaho Went to Space Long Before The Bored Billionaires

Remember when Lance Bass from N Sync was training to go to space? The 19 year anniversary of that NOT coming to fruition is this Saturday, October 30th. Fast forward to earlier this year when Richard Branson and friends hopped on a rocket and made it to space (very briefly). Not to be outdone, fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos took a phallic shaped rocket to space, twice! The latter time with Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner, onboard.

Must be nice to have all this disposable income to take random flights into space that have no other purpose than to feel cool and say you went to space. Such a frivolous use of money. But hey, at least they aren't spending their money funding something evil and horrible, like Squid Game. At least not that we know of. But long before these billionaires were wasting money for aeronautical fun, an astronaut from Idaho went to space to do actual important stuff.

Astronaut and Pisces from Mountain Home, James F. Reilly, went on three space shuttle missions during his career from 1994 to 2008. According to the NASA website, these missions included the transport of important equipment for other stations, the retrieval of  astronauts from different expeditions, and performing construction and repair on the International Space Station. Highly important and beneficial.

And what did these billionaires do? Barely tipped into space and provide nothing of value. Got tons of media coverage though. But I'd rather give praise to a hometown guy who helped advance things in the realm of space exploration. And at 67 years old he's now totally a zaddy.