Here I am in my downtown St. Petersburg, Florida office. This is a photo that Chuck Kennedy took for American Journalism Review when I worked for
the St. Petersburg Times.

Becoming The First Journalist
In Space

Most people say they have dreams -- dreams to which they aspire. 

I don't exactly have dreams. I have daydreams. 

You know how a little kid can sit with toy action figures, pretending that they're actually alive and that the toys and he are in the midst of fighting the bad guys? That's me. You know how a child can sit in a cardboard box and pretend it's a spaceship and be entranced with it for hours? That's me. 

I literally "see" myself in various places and jobs down the road. Some of my greatest aspirations have come while driving -- listening to loud rock-n-roll while daydreaming and picturing myself in various situations. 

I think I got that from my Dad. I remember many a time as a kid when I was riding alone with him watching him mumble to himself and even gesture, carrying on some imaginary conversation. Now I do the same thing. 

Even though I'm all grown up now, I still am young at heart and want to experience the world and make a difference everywhere I can. That's why I love being a journalist so much. Every day is new and exotic, and you get to go after the bad people of the world and make a blow for the good guys. 

But lately, I've had a recurring daydream -- a daydream of something I have wanted for more than a decade. 

I'd like to become the first journalist in space. 

I remember in the 1980s there being the competition for the first journalist on the Space Shuttle. Then Challenger exploded and the journalist program was dropped. 

As a journalist and photographer intimately familiar with everything from technology to biology (my parents are herpetologists), I would be a perfect candidate for the program. And imagine this: doing a day-by-day diary of the adventure -- from training to lift-off to touchdown -- live on the Internet.

Imagine how many tens of thousand of people would become daily readers of such a journal and how many youngsters would be encouraged to follow space-related careers? 

When I think of going into space, my daydreams become vivid. 

I can just see me now -- walking out just before liftoff with the other astronauts. The only difference between them and me is that I would have jokingly gotten a badge that said "Press" and stuck it out of a band on my helmet -- just like the journalists in the 40s used to do. 

I can hear the crowd chuckling about it as I walk past them. 

I imagine chronicling the lives of the astronauts on board and spending hours on end answering e-mail from thousands of youngsters across the world. I can see myself conducting interviews and filming experiments live, beaming it all back via the Internet. 

And I can see me on the Shuttle, doing an interview with Nightline, then looking on in horror during the interview, pointing to a window and saying, "Oh, my god, some sort of ship is out there!" 

Then I'll look into the camera, grin widely and say, "I've always wanted to do that, Ted. I wonder how many hearts across the world just skipped a beat?" 

He'll laugh. I'll laugh. And people across the world will roll their eyes. 

Someday, I will make it into space. I will chronicle something no journalist has ever done before. 

And in the process, the little kid in me -- the daydreamer -- will be smiling.