I was an 11-year-old at Space Camp when I realized I was never going to space. This was July 1986, just six months after the space shuttle Challenger exploded on live TV, taking the lives of seven astronauts. The mood at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Ala., was understandably somber. NASA, still investigating the O-ring failure that caused the tragedy, hadn’t slated any new missions. We were astronauts-to-be with no plans for liftoff. We ate freeze-dried Neapolitan ice cream, posed for pictures next to massive rockets, rode in a giant centrifuge and went home.

The...