50 years ago today: Godspeed, John Glenn.

[11 Bravo]

I think that through the haze of time we sometimes forget how incredibly brave those original Mercury 7 astronauts were. There was an issue with the nascent American space program ... our rockets kept blowing up! Yet these men volunteered to strap themselves atop one of those rockets to be (hopefully) lifted into space. Astronauts Shepard and Grissom survived their sub-orbital missions. Then, on February 20, 1962, John Glenn completed his three orbit flight; although he had to keep his retro pack attached to the re-entry vehicle to ensure that the heat seal didn't fall off, which would have resulted in his incineration on live television.
So I'll say it again ... Godspeed John Glenn. You, Al Shepard, Gus Grissom, Gordo Cooper, Scott Carpenter, Deke Slayton, and Wally Schirra were American heroes, and remarkably courageous individuals.

[Arkansas Granny]

1. Those were exciting days. Our teachers would bring their personal tv's into the classrooms

so we could see history being made. All of the networks covered the flights, so we would watch the whole space shot, from lift off to recovery, going from one classroom to the next. No other schoolwork got done on those days until the astronauts were safely back on the ground. I especially loved to listen to Walter Cronkite's narrative and all of the mock-ups and simulations, which were quite crude by today's standards, so we could visualize what was happening so far above our heads.

[enlightenment]

2. My dad was AF and I went to DOD schools -

they brought the TV's in on wheeled carts - or radios if there weren't televisions. I remember my dad waking us all up to crowd into his office at home to listen to the moon landing, too - we were in Japan at the time.

I believe we changed as a culture - in a good way - because of our commitment to space exploration, and that the loss of the program, replaced by the shuttles (which were great, but definitely not what I consider 'space exploration' - just orbiting science projects) was a loss for us as a nation. We are, collectively, a people who need frontiers to challenge us both in reality and in the collective conscious - Frederick Jackson Turner may have been wrong about the closing of the West, but he wasn't wrong about what the frontier signifies. I know there are more pressing issues that need our time, attention, and money - but it is a shame we no longer have space as an option.

[11 Bravo]

3. My Dad was Navy. I watched Shepard's flight on TV in the 6th grade. I had a special interest ...

because Dad and Al Shepard had been test pilots together at Pax River, MD, not long before I was born.

[enlightenment]

4. Very cool!

My dad was offered a chance to apply for a place in that group of test pilots right after the war (he was one of a relatively small handful of quadruple rated flying officers - gunner, bombardier, navigator, pilot - and they were all offered a chance to apply because of their quals) but my mom told him she would divorce him if he accepted the position. He went on to fly heavies for SAC instead.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. I was in 3rd grade and remember it so well

Sitting in class, watching that black and white TV. Exciting times indeed.

[lunatica]

5. Our school did the same thing

I was picked to hold the world globe and point out the places John Glenn was flying over. It was exciting. The possibilities were endless and wonderful. It would be nice to go explore other planets. We keep thinking we've reached the finish line when no such thing has happened. There's something stumped about our imagination. Or at least the Conservative minds and imaginations. Stumped and stunted.

[Arkansas Granny]

7. It's not just a lack of imagination. The conservative mind also seems to distrust science.

Most of them are more comfortable relying on faith than provable facts.

[lunatica]

8. I couldn't wait for the 21st Century!

I was so psyched that I would only be 51 years old in the 21st Century.

All that time and we ended up going back to the Dark Ages.

[dembotoz]

6. science meant stuff back then

maybe that is what we need is a new space race

it was important

the nation pretty much came to a halt on the day of those launchings.

miss that

[customerserviceguy]

10. By the late 1960's science began to become distrusted

The environmental movement seemed to coincide with that. Certainly, we started to realize the previously-hidden costs associated with modern living.

Seeing the whole Earth in one picture taken for the first time from Apollo 8 stimulated the idea of preserving the home planet. It was like the space program containing within it the seed of its own destruction.