Which only proves to me that NASA has become the worst advocate for space travel. Now, I'm no astrophysicist, Air Force test pilot or satellite communications specialist. Hell, my cellphone barely works. My problem with "space tourism" is my own bitter jealousy. Otherwise, I rank Tito with John Glenn. He's a pioneer. It's time to bring space down to earth.

Much of the criticism of Tito's flight is the danger his visit presents to the fledgling space station. He has to pay for anything he breaks (or stains, I guess); NASA is confining him solely to the Russian section of the ISS; and all experiments on the station are going on hiatus for Tito's stay. He must sleep in the Russian "Space Taxi" that's bringing him there, and he can't move around -- not even to the little billionaire's room -- without an escort.

NASA isn't alone. Every other member of the ISS committee -- except Russia, of course -- has expressed concern over the mission. The new chairman of the House Science Committee, Sherwood Boehlert, R-N.Y., has spoken out against Tito's visit, despite the financier's strong donations to the GOP -- so much so that President Bush himself may make a call to the station when Tito arrives. But it's a bipartisan concern. Texan Ralph Hall, the ranking Democrat on the same committee, called Tito's visit a "distraction" and "misallocation" of station resources.

NASA fears the fragile new station and its scientific mission could be harmed by the presence of an untrained passenger like Tito, who might be the Homer Simpson of the elite rich. The $60 billion station is "not a pleasure cruise," a NASA spokesperson has told news agencies, and who knows what damage Tito's shufflepuck might do in the cold vacuum of space. While those fears are justified, I don't buy them for a second. What NASA really stands to suffer is a diminishing of the grandeur and self-importance of extraplanetary travel, a cheapening of space, if you will.

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That's also a justified fear for an agency that's so underfunded, and subjected to so much scrutiny. But so what? When it's time to go, it's time to go, and it's time for NASA to let the rest of us go, too.

I wouldn't call Georgia O'Keeffe's "Sky Above Clouds IV" my favorite painting. But her 24-foot-wide airplane view of marshmallow-shaped clouds stretched out to the horizon is impressive -- taking up a full wall at Chicago's Art Institute. Equally impressive are the dozens of people who stand gaping underneath it.

I'm sure they, like me, have had years of flying bored, as the commonality of air transport has turned the rides into expensive nap times, movie galleries with cramped seating and bad food. To our left, we may see the Grand Tetons, but without the captain's announcement, would we look? O'Keeffe reminds us to look, and her canvas and oil instantly reminded me of the summer of my 8th year, heading to Los Angeles from Philadelphia. Not yet experienced enough to be bored, I played the greatest "What's that cloud look like?" game of my life.

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