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Okay, onto the show.

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

Maddie Sifai here with NPR's Nell Greenfield Boys Science Correspondent, hey now.

Hey Maddie, it's been a long time. I'm glad to have you back on the show.

Thanks for having me.

So you are here to talk about a historic space launch that's set for tomorrow.

Right. Two NASA astronauts are scheduled to blast off from Florida on a spaceship made by SpaceX.

So this is SpaceX, the private space technology company founded by Elon Musk.

Right, so SpaceX built this vehicle in partnership with NASA, but it's SpaceX's spaceship.

And here's the big historic thing to me.

It's been almost 40 years since NASA sent a crew up in a brand new spacecraft.

The last time was in 1981. That was the first launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia.

Yeah, I missed that one, though. I'm gonna be honest.

How old were you then? I was negative eight.

Oh!

All right, so just for you, just to get you in the mood and like help you understand what those times were like,

I thought we could play a little music.

All right, let's bump it.

Yeah, I'm moving this spaceship.

We were at the launching site.

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