That same view inspired a not quite favorite song -- Liz Phair's "Stratford-On-Guy." The song is an observation of the city from a moving plane, and of the plane from the view of one seat: "I was flying into Chicago at night, watching the lake turn the sky into blue-green smoke ..."

The song is mechanical, more read than sung, and yet since hearing it, I don't know if I've ever flown into Chicago, or any other city for that matter, without thinking of it - or thinking like it.

Planes fly in and out of Chicago hundreds of times a day. It's safe and sound and boring. Thankfully Orville and Wilbur shared the experience with Georgia and Liz and the rest of us.

It's time for science to share space. It's past time to get the poets, the philosophers, the psychologists, the politicians, the plumbers and, darn it, me, up there. I want to see what weather looks like without a meteorologist in the way. I want to see the sky without the satellites and smog. I want to float, I want to feel both awed, inspired and afraid of my giant planet -- and awed, inspired and afraid of the lengths of human achievement. I want to come back and see if a tree on a hill looks different if in one gaze I've known the entire hemisphere it shares.

I can't be alone in wanting to know my planet like this. And that's good -- because I also really want to know my planet in ways I can't assume -- in ways that a musician or a sociologist might. I want to see how an architect is influenced by time in zero G; I want to hear how a secretary of state might speak for peace after seeing a globe without borders, a planet uncolored by the pettiness of people. I want launches and landings to become casual, and meaningless, so that a new generation of musicians and artists can reexpress it and remind me of the wonder again.

I was born three years after Neil Armstrong's moon walk. I've known no time without space travel, space shuttles, space stations. And yet, we're still earthbound. It may just take the banality of a "space tourist" to make the stars a tenable goal, not just for governments, but for everyday guys like me.

Which may be what NASA needs. Though the Bush White House has expressed renewed interest in space, the days of Cold War goals, and national pride equaling NASA pride, are gone. Good. Jingoism is an awkward way to achieve the next step of human intellectual and technological growth. But egotism? Selfish desire to touch the heavens -- or at least be close enough for a better view? I'm OK with that. And NASA should be too.

Space, or NASA for that matter, will not be cheapened by Tito's visit. Nor will it be if "Titanic" director James Cameron fulfills his dream of space travel next year, or even if the folks behind "Survivor" can resurrect their plan for "Destination Mir" now that Mir is resting on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. If every space tourist comes back and gets more people willing to take the risk for the ultimate spring break, then NASA will have a real priority -- not just understanding space and the technology necessary to be there, but helping to define humanity's role in space, and space's role in the human experience.

Frankly, I'm surprised it took this long. If you told me, at age 8, that by the time I was 28, the closest I'd get to space would be that plane heading to L.A., I wouldn't believe you.

And then I'd get back to enjoying the clouds.

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