ANA Discussion Forum
AN Community => AN Community => Topic started by: Mei Mei on June 23, 2011, 06:08:29 pm
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Hi All!
I just listened to the evening news and here in DC at the Smithsonian were the last two surviving members of the original seven astronauts. It was hard looking at the pics of John Glenn and Scott Carpenter as such nice tall, straight healthy examples of American but very very much looking like Senior Citizens and not as I had remembered them when I sat on the floor with my other classmates in Elementary School and prayed as my teacher smiled down at me for being so emotional. I prayed in New York for the safe return of Alan Shepherd's 15 minute voyage that we listened to on an AM Transistor radio. It was no time to be studying. Just looking back and appreciating how time flies and that we have to take a break from our health problems to appreciate all that has happened around us. I didn't even know that Alan Shepherd was no longer with us.
Hugs to all my fellow Forumites,
Mei Mei
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Wow! Hard to believe there are only two of the original seven still living.
I actually work for a former NASA astronaut. Greg Harbaugh; he was on the Hubble.
Jan
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I know, Jan. It's scary and I miss them. They were a big part of my growing up. Now git to bed. It's late!
Mei Mei
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Mei Mei ~
AT 68, I have this type of experience fairly often. As Peter De Vries wrote: "nostalgia isn't what it used to be". :D
Jim
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No Flip Cameras back then., Still had the Polaroid and the 8mm movie camera. I enjoyed your picture taking adventures in Cincy but I was joking that the way the camera was moving around, if I was to watch your movies I might think my AN was getting worse. Your were great and had a wonderful and outgoing personality.
Skip
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Thanks Skip and Jim. I too am learning the lessons of nostalgia and fighting it.
I'll be up in Boston for July 7 to 12. If anyone is around Cambridge or Watertown, I would love to meet you.
Mei Mei
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Interesting thread. For twelve years I lived about ten minutes from Johnson Space Center. I have many friends who have worked for NASA for many, many years. In 1957 I watched the lift off of one of the "monkey" flights from Cape Kennedy from the fire tower...a life long friend of the family was the fire captain there. I have attended many balloon and flight rallies for the heroes of space. Mark Kelly is the next door neighbor of a friend and uses our a/c company...very nice guy. I have met many former astronauts and many who were in training. Both of my grand daughters participated in the Science and Space Camp programs at Ellington Air Force Base with some excursions to the inter workings of NASA. Of course the current administrations dismantling of NASA and the space program has hurt the Houston area very severely...many one time six figure income families have lost their homes and no jobs coming close to what they were doing or the income they were earning. I am going to miss all of the hoopla over the lifts offs and returns...it was an exciting time for this country and the world.
Brenda
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What is going to happen to our advantage after the closure? What is next for us?
Mei Mei
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A few weeks after the Symposium I traveled to Orlando for the N.F.B. convention. When my plane took off to come back home on Friday the 9th we could see the last space shuttle out the window. It took off right after we did. For a split second I could see it. It was really something to be sharing the same air space. Who knows, the way the economy is going that may be the last manned space flight this country sees for a long time. Very sad.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYh6BD6-Hc8&feature=youtu.be&utm_source=Ravinia+Friends+and+Family&utm_campaign=3811078b27-Newsletter&utm_medium=email
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Leapyrtwins
Thank you for the link. What a powerful video. It made me think about the world I live in and what kind of world I would like to live in.
A WORLD : Without war and poverty, no more racial prejudices or ethnic strife, where no child has
to go to bed hungry and no parent ever has to bury a child. Where every disease has
a cure and money is not the motivator behind success. And as one poster stated, "a
world where God looks down and smiles"
I am thankful for the world I live in. It may not be perfect but it is my world and I will continue to do what I can to impact it in a positive way.
Thanks again,
Skip
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Skip ~
I appreciate your wish for what would be a perfect world. However, I think what you're describing is heaven, not earth and mankind. Still, the fact that you posted this: "I am thankful for the world I live in. It may not be perfect but it is my world and I will continue to do what I can to impact it in a positive way" demonstrates a healthy, realistic attitude that I like to think we all share to some extent. Thanks for your thoughts.
Jim
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Skip -
the link was passed along to me, and the others I work with, from our CEO and President Greg Harbaugh who used to be an astronaut. He's got some great pictures in his office and lots of very cool stuff w/NASA logos.
He was at the launching with his family.
Here's another link that's pretty neat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVJDYI1BQA4
Jan
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How incredible they are! Thanks, Jan.
and what an opportunity Gman had in the airplane side by side with a launching!
That is going to be one of your treasured moments in your life!
Mei Mei
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Okay...I can go w-a-y back on this one! I went to school at Langley AFB in the sixth grade with Scott Carpenter's son, also named Scott. The family was lovely. This was back before NASA moved to Houston. I can remember when they moved from Langley to Houston to participate in the space program. Those were the days!
Priscilla
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You all are giving me a "Miss Clairol Moment". :o ;) Seems like yesterday we were all watching Neil Armstrong taking his infamous first step.....
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when I was telling kids about me and my brothers getting ready weeks in advance of launches , they looked at me like I was nuts ... we would get ready by wrapping boxes with aluminum foil and adding windows , antennas , switches made of clothe pins , dials and knobs made of bottle caps and who know what else we added ... we would lay on our backs with our heads / shoulders in the boxes and go through check lists and blast off ...we could play in our space crafts for hours and traveled where NASA couldn't go and still be home in time for dinner ...
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;D Absolutely wonderful story. You've had a terrific childhood! Keep your imagination fruitful1
Mei Mei
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Okay, I'm late to the party on this thread, but I'd like to share my small experience with our space program. I lived in Hawaii in July of 1969, and I was so thrilled, as was most everybody, to witness this historic trip to the moon. I watched the launch of the Apollo rocket and then after it got in orbit, it circled the earth for one and a half rotations, then it fired rockets and left earth's orbit and headed for the moon. Well, in Hawaii, everyone was gathering in different places, because we were going to be able to see the rocket burn (I hope I'm using the right terminology here...) Anyway, I was up sometime in the middle of the night...2 a.m or something like that, and went and sat on the stairs to my apartment building and waited and waited, not knowing what it was going to look like. This was before I had a decent camera, before we recorded every darn thing in our life, so I don't have a photo of this. Darn!! Suddenly there was a bright light in the sky, and it spread out into a V formation and because it was following the curvature of the earth, that V, which grew in size and practically filled 1/4 of the sky, did not go "up", but went "down" and just looked like it was plunging back to earth. It was breathtaking. I thought I'd see some little light in the sky, but it was a pretty big, exciting light show. Then, days later, I watched the whole thing on my neighbor's bigger TV set and sat in utter fascination as our species walked on another world. And, of course, after splash down, the astronauts came to Hawaii first. With that going on, and the Viet Nam war, Hawaii was a pretty busy place in those days. I felt like that was the center of the known world for a while.