Two Tempe space geeks - that's their word - have turned the space vacation of a lifetime into a romantic adventure.
On Friday morning, Chris Cardinal took his girlfriend over to the countdown clock for a quick photo.
Then, much to her surprise, he got down on his knee and proposed. Nina Tallman said yes.
The two - he a web-developer, she a nurse - met two years ago on a set-up date.
Cardinal is the space fanatic of the two, although it is fair to say she is a serious fan of the space program. So the couple decided they would come to Florida for a launch before the shuttle program ended.
Then NASA sent out a request for tweeters from around the world. Anybody interested in a "space tweet-out?" the agency asked.
Within 24 hours, there were 4,100 requests.
The tweeters would have remarkable access to the shuttle the space center. All they had to do was tweet. And they both did anyway.
So they both applied. The problem was, even if one was accepted, there would be no guests allowed.
Cardinal, 25, wanted to reduce the long odds, so he called NASA, told him his plan, and miraculously, both were accepted.
He brought his ring and waited for his moment. He wanted to do it at what he called the RSS retraction area. At a couple of hundred yards, it is basically the closes a person can get to the launch pad.
But the tweeters trip to the pad on Thursday night was scrubbed because of weather. So he did it Friday morning at the countdown clock.
As the clock counted down, he asked and Tallman, 29, screamed so loud, everybody in the area turned to see what was happening.
Then they stood and cheered. Very sweet.
Soon after, there was the disappointing announcement from NASA the scheduled launch was scrubbed, for now. But for Cardinal and Tallman, they're already on Cloud 9.
Of course, the news of a NASA love story was tweeted out around the world in moments.
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