... rpm Wheaties Micky Mouse Club records while we were waiting for something to happen on the TV. There was delay after delay so finally as we are all dressed dad drove us the 26 miles to my grandparents farm.
In that 40 minutes it took to load up and drive THIS happened.
John Glenn became the first Amercian to orbit the Earth and the first human to fly a spacecraft from the Earth into orbit and back to the Earth.
The first generation Soviet spacecraft required them to parachute free from their craft at several thousand feet as it landed at too high a speed to be survivable so technically they were not the first to do so. Ask the French, they keep these crazy records.
By the French standards several X-15 rocket plane flights made it onto space as suborbital flights above the 100 KM line. The US counts several more as we measure the edge of space lower.
These early astronauts/cosmonauts were something special. Gagarin had something like a 1 in 2 chance of getting into orbit and a 1 in 3 of the rocket malfunctioning VERY badly, IE a dangerous abort or his death. Glenn's odds were not all that much better.
John in Wauwatosa
Comments
Radio...
...the principal of our school had the P.A. system broadcast the radio coverage of his lift-off. Everybody in my fifth-grade class (boys only, if you please) wanted to be one of the Mercury 7. Little did I know way back then that I would have more of an affinity with Sally Ride, aye?
Love, Andrea Lena
I wasn't...
Even a twinkle in my folks eyes. Heck. THEY were the kids when that happened!
Abigail Drew.
Feel old
With all those comments from fellow members that follow yours regarding there being babies compared to us, I feel ancient.
Rami
RAMI
LOL!!!!
In wasn't even thought of yet.LOL
Waiting
to be fertilized. Turns out, all that waiting, and I get a bum deal. Those Ys must have been eating Subway and swam just a little faster.
People say, "You don't know what you had until it's gone." Very true, but also equally true is, "You don't know what you've been missing until is arrives."
Just wish they never invented
... Stilbesterol. The suspected culprit.
Kim
Thanks for bringing this
to my attention. I wonder if my mom took this stuff. She did loose a child before me, which could have prompted her to start taking it. Several things hold very true for me?
People say, "You don't know what you had until it's gone." Very true, but also equally true is, "You don't know what you've been missing until is arrives."
My understanding is that Doctor prescribed the stuff
... during the 60s. This would not be surprising as medical inertia happens. My mother probably went to a Chinese doctor in America who probably would want her to take it since I was a change of life baby. My siblings were born overseas without that kind of 'help' I suspect.
Kim
52 years ago
I was not born and my parents were engaged while working for W.T. Grants.
Hugs,
Jenna From FL
Moderator/Editor
TopShelf BigCloset
It is a long road ahead but I will finally become who I should be.
Gestating
I was growing in my mother's womb, killing time while I waited to be born in a few months. :p
- Terry
51 years ago???
I was in Vietnam on February 20 1962. I heard a few days later that John Glenn had orbited the earth and returned successfully. I had been in country for two or three weeks as I recall. I and several others who have been at this site spent the next eight years in SouthEast Asia (not necessarily Vietnam).
Renae.
lol
My parents had not even met yet I think.
A great day
That was a great day for America, and the first real step to the moon. As I posted in a blog last July, it's too bad, that at least regarding manned flight, we must rely on the Russians to launch us. It is scary to think that the as they were called back then, the Red Chineese may be launching manned flights before we do so again.
Rami
RAMI
Actually it's only a few more
Actually it's only a few more years before America is launching manned flights again, it just won't be spaceships owned by the government. There are several companies that are already in some of the final stages of testing their ships. The Dragon has already done unmanned fights to the ISS carrying cargo.
And China has already done manned flights. The Shenzhou 5 made orbit on October 15, 2003, making them the third nation to launch into orbit.
You want scary?
It was The hip-hop/pop/reggae singer Rhianna's 25th birthday today as well.
John in Wauwatosa
John in Wauwatosa
Ten months
old at the time, so I can't say I remember it. :)
Grover
ten months old, Grover?
I was a mature, almost adult ... 51 months old. I started morning kindergarten the fall of 62.
John in Wauwatosa
P.S. The EVIL BLONDE TM, my younger sister, was not quite six months old. The EXACT same age to the day as Milley Cyrus's dad.
Now do you feel OLD?
John in Wauwatosa
Not existing
I was minus fifteen years old at the time - mum was probably going through puberty at the time...
As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!
in 1962?
well my mom's senior year was in 1972 so that would put her in 2nd grade?
it's safe to say i was doing absolutly nothing at the time =P
Feb 20th 1962
51 years ago i was almost 90 days old. We didnt have a tv or radio (too poor).
We lived in a very small town too distant to get regular radio and there were only tv signals in the bigger cities.
Dayna
Ps we did have a tv for the moon walk but we were so far from the signal we had a bag taped to the screen to increase the contrast and make the lousy reception clearer.
I was in junior school
probably getting ready for St David's Day eisteddfod as well as doing ordinary school stuff displaying my well developed self belief but little talent.
Angharad
51 years ago
I was on a troop ship on the way to the Far East. Of course, the astronaut names feature in that classic supermarionation series, as the Tracy family.
Feb. 21, 1962
I well remember what I was doing! Among other things, I was a draftsman for a company that installed restaurant and grocery store equipment. I recall taking some plans to a supply company that could reproduce my drawing into blueprints that could be used to order, and install the refrigeration equipment for a grocery store, or order and install the equipment needed to get the restaurant up and operable - kitchen equipment such as ranges, fryers, grills/griddles, necessary storage, and work spaces to prepare the foods, the front counter equipment (back bar, counter, stools, ice cream fountains, and whatever else was necessary for successful operation.) John Glenn was just being lifted off Earth for his Epic Adventure,and returned to Earth safely before the afternoon was over. Why is this so vivid to me? The next day, Feb. 22, 1962, was my scheduled date to go on active duty from the USN Reserve. I decided to go regular navy so I could get training, and by the end of 2-22-62, I was Regular Navy, enlisted for 4 years, instead of the 2 years I would have needed to serve as a reserve. And after 6 months of Radio School in San Diego, California, I was assigned to a ship out of Newport,RI, that I would not be able to join until after Thanksgiving 1962, because the ship was in the South Caribbean Seas as part of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Six months later, when the ship was decommissioned in Philadelphia, I was assigned to a destroyer that became part of the Gemini project, and the ship was equipped for Gemini Capsule Recovery. The ship was also out of Newport, RI, and although we never recovered a capsule, we were always on station when a launch and recovery was scheduled. I never got to see or meet an astronaut, but it meant a lot to me to have been part of the United States Space Missions. Yes, Feb. 21, 1962 remains forever in my memory because of that.
.
Don't let someone else talk you out of your dreams. How can we have dreams come true, if we have no dreams?
Katrina Gayle "Stormy" Storm
I can just remember...
I remember my entire family glued to the TV set, which was odd beyond degree (1) because my father loathed television and (2) because in such a big family it never happened that everyone wanted to watch the same show.
Like many here the answer to
Like many here the answer to the question is not having yet being born as my parents had only just become teenagers in 1962. I'm of the generation for whom the excitement, romance and relentless progress of the Apollo missions was history. I do remember avidly watching the launch of the space shuttle in 1981 on the news with my dad but I'm pretty sure I didn't even see that live. I do wonder if in twenty years time my little nephew will have no memories of manned spaceflight other than ISS resupply missions. :-(
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
February 1962
I was in the penultimat year of my highschool (or the equivalent in Sweden) and as today this part of Sweden had the "midwinter paus" so I was probably havimg a leisure time enjoing the pause in school. From the School picture I had my "Fremch period" managed to stay away from the tie as normally was expected of us. The future still looked as if I should study polymeric chemisstry. How little did I know of my future.
Ginnie
GinnieG
TV
was in school that day everyone was in the gym watch CBS hen in went up. gee them good olds sigh.
I have...
I have no idea... I wasn't four (4) years old yet... So probably playing at something.
My mother was a baby...
My mother was a baby...
I was busy not existing :-)
And problem is that while Gagarin was catapulted from landing module (as no one was exactly sure that landing is survivable, and yes, they added some jet brakes to the lander for next mission, AFAIK), John Glenn had not completed one full circle around Earth...
So these first missions were extremely dangerous, we are lucky that first guys into space survived the journey. But those flights to the space were mostly intended for propaganda purposes so there were some omissions in description of events by media :-)
I probably ...
... went into work as normal to work on a computer very different from the one you're reading this on. We designed and manufactured big business machines built from discrete germanium transistors with real core store and a magnetic drum for permanent storage. It had a whopping clock speed of 1Mhz, no vdu or keyboard and data input was via 80 column punched cards. One of my colleagues did succeed in programming one to play Mozart's clarinet concerto and, at Christmas we set 4 of them to play 4 part harmony - great fun.
I suppose I heard about the US orbit but it wasn't a big deal for us as Yuri got there before you but it was certainly of interest. Apart from my electronics career my main interest was motor cycling and what I then thought was my almost unique problems with gender.
Where have the years gone?
Robi
Well, it wasn't fifty-one year ago but,
with all the talk about the space program initiated by the orbital flight of John Glenn and moving on to other space flights.... I was in White Sands, NM for the one and only landing of a shuttle at that location. STS-3 landed there and I was an engineer manning a satellite uplink which had been rented by CBS so they could cover the landing. I was the only one on site who had a spectrum analyser so I wound up monitoring the large multitude of uplinks for the Military liason even as I was providing up and down link connections for CBS. I remember less than 24 hours after most of us had set up our semi-rigs, some unexploded ordinance was found right in the middle of us all. The military put a fence around it which went out some twenty feet from the bomb. fat lot of good that would have done if it exploded.
I also remember the gypsum storm which blasted the paint off one side of the rig as well as from the five meter clamshell dish we were using.
Had a lot of fun times.
Anesidora
21st July 1962. I was sixteen and -
checking back through my seaman's discharge book I was crossing the Grand Banks, south east of Newfoundland bound for New York or Boston for the ninth time from Liverpool. Quite the little traveller by then.
I had just graduated High School.
Vietnam was on the front burner, spent the summer working at a Car Wash. Was seriously thinking of going to Canada. Still don't know if I should have or not since I have heard various stories about the fate of those who dodged the draft that way. There was no question that it was a stupid war that killed lots of our best. My College prospects were zilch, having graduated from HS with a 1.95, mostly due to the drunken chaos at home. I did register for Classes there, since it was cheap then. Despite early indications that I would be a failure, I was only half so.