Three years ago this week, my waiter came back from space.

Over the years, I have been blessed to have met several astronauts, ranging from those who made history during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs to rookie astronauts who had not yet flown when I met them. Spaceflight -- and the risks associated with it -- took on a more personal meaning the first time the space shuttle launched into space carrying someone I'd had the opportunity to talk with.

When STS-128 launched in August 2009, its crew included first-time space flyer José Hernandez, who had a more unusual personal distinction for me.

I'd had the opportunity to meet Hernandez twice. The first time was not long after his selection as an astronaut candidate in 2004; when Hernandez and the rest of his selection class visited Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., as part of their training. Not only had he and the others not flown at that point, they weren't even officially astronauts yet. On later visits, as they returned from their first spaceflights, they would be hailed as heroes, but on this trip they were still unknowns.

The next time I met Hernandez after he was already an official astronaut, while I was on a trip to Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. I encountered him not at the space center, but at dinner that evening. Asking for recommendations for a restaurant to eat dinner at that night, I received a recommendation to visit a Mexican eatery that Hernandez' family had opened nearby and my coworkers and I decided to check it out. Despite knowing that Hernandez' famliy owned the restaurant, I was surprised to find on that evening that the astronaut himself seated us, took our order, brought our food and even bussed our table after we ate. Hernandez was incredibly friendly, and we had some great conversation about everything from the space business to the restaurant business.

And so when he finally made it into space a while later, it was a first -- not only was someone I'd met on the STS-128 shuttle mission, but this crew included someone that had waited my table. Truly, not something that just anyone can claim.

But even if you've never had an astronaut serve your meal, you can do something even better at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center -- have lunch or dinner with an astronaut. In addition to several special dinner events over the course of a year attended by astronauts, Space Camp offers "lunch with an astronaut" programs to which the public can buy tickets.

Not only will you hear several good stories about what it's like to explore the space frontier, you'll come out of the experience with a great story of your own.

Contributing Author: David Hitt