FALL RIVER, Mass.

The space shuttle is gone, but optimism and ambition for the future of U.S. manned space flight is alive in people such as NASA astronaut Steven Bowen.

Returning to his home state Saturday, Bowen gave more than a hundred local children and their parents aboard the battleship Massachusetts a sense of excitement for space exploration and his experience on three shuttle missions.

The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the Gemini space capsule recovery by the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., a destroyer that sits docked a few feet away from the Massachusetts in Fall Rivers Battleship Cove.

But the message was one of wonder at the adventure of exploring space and the science, engineering and mathematics that makes it possible.

Everywhere I go its always there, Bowen said in a post-talk interview about peoples interest in space. We have the ability [to explore further], and we have the personal will, we just need the national will to do it.

A native of Cohasset and former Navy submariner, the 50-year-old Bowen grew up during the latter end of the space-race era and argues sending men to the moon paid dividends in a generation interested in science and innovation.

With the shuttle gone and the United States transitioning from NASAs singular role in space travel to one of partnership with private companies, Bowen said future missions to the moon, an asteroid or Mars would surely do the same for another generation.

At some point it will become important again, Bowen said.

To kindle that interest in a new generation, Bowen provided his young audience Saturday with the kind of simple, behind-the-scenes details of a shuttle flight that bring a distant down to earth.

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Astronaut, a native of Cohasset, Mass., shares love of space with school kids