47 years in space for the US

[MrForbes]

It's my birthday, and I was born the day that Alan Shepard became the first American to be shot in a rocket into space....so that must mean something. Not sure what, but it's probably not very robot related.

[GaryVoshol]

Whaddaya mean, 47 isn't robot related?

Oh, happy birthday, ya young whippersnapper. I was around slightly before Sputnik.

[JaneYoung]

Originally Posted by squirrel

It's my birthday, and I was born the day that Alan Shepard became the first American to be shot in a rocket into space....so that must mean something. Not sure what, but it's probably not very robot related.

new territories to explore
new adventures to be had
a new perspective of the horizon and how broad it is
the big picture

I dunno, I could see robots in your future...

[ebarker]

that's an interesting tidbit.

Just yesterday I gave a luncheon speech about the environment, energy, and education and talked about the space program in the discussion.

Last October 50 years ago Sputnik was launched. So that was about 2 and 1/2 years between Sputnik and Alan Shepard. That took the right stuff !!

[dangerousdave]

Having grown up during the dawn of the USA space program, I would place it in the top 3 of important and meaningful events in my life.

It is so different now. As others here might have also experienced, our school teachers would bring a TV into the classroom to watch an important event like a launch or spashdown.

To the younger people that are unaware, all of our manned spaceships used to return to the Earth via an ocean splashdown and an aircraft carrier would retrieve the astronauts and their capsule. One exception to that is America's second man in space, Gus Grissom's Mercury (Liberty Bell 7) capsule.

Gus was recovered on July 21, 1961, but the hatch blew open at the wrong time and the capsule was lost 3 miles deep into Atlantic ocean until.....on July 20, 1999 the capsule was recovered. There is a great 2 hour program called "In Search Of Liberty Bell 7" on the Science channel about this recovery.

Gus Grissom was born in Mitchell, IN and graduated from Purdue. Had he not been killed along with fellow astronauts White and Chaffee in the tragic Apollo 1 launchpad fire in January, 1967, he would have likely been the first person to walk on the moon instead of Neil Armstrong. There is a crater on the moon named after him, "Grissom".
Dave

P.S. Happy birthday squirrel.

[wendymom]

Happy Birthday! It just means I'm still older than you but thats ok.

I too grew up watching the space race but I watched it from my backyard. My dad was an engineer for every launch from the first Geminis to the middle of the shuttle program. I was 12 or 13 before I realized that everyone didn't see rockets go off from the beach. Most everyone I knew was connected to Cape Kennedy in one way or another. We were never in school to watch, most of the east coast of Florida took the day off on launch days, went to the beach and cooked out so we could watch. The ground would rumble and the sound wave would knock you back a bit when the mighty Apollos took off. I miss it.

The shuttles are pretty but its not the same.

Ahhh memories.

[GaryVoshol]

When the Dragon Devils FLL team went to Houston for the World Festival, we went to Johnson Space Center. In a museum display there was a model of the Apollo rocket, and a capsule. We pointed out that was the only part that returned from space - that little tiny cone at the top of the model. They were amazed, because they only knew the space shuttle, where most of the parts came back down.

[lingomaniac88]

Hmm... 47... how appropriate for the Chief Delphi forums.