Godspeed, John Glenn!

Non-fashion, non-skirt, non-gender discussions. If your post is related to fashion, skirts or gender, please choose one of the forums above for it.
Post Reply
wsherman
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 173
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2009 8:12 pm
Location: North Dakota USA

Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by wsherman »

I just heard that a great man, a great American, and a personal hero has passed away.
I was nine years old when he made his his stork orbital flight.
Indeed, godspeed, John Glenn!

Remembering him.
Bill
"In a logical world men would ride sidesaddle." The Late Paul Harvey

I.D.I.C. "Infinite Diversity Infinite Combination" Vulcan philosophy from Star Trek TOS
User avatar
crfriend
Master Barista
Posts: 14431
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 9:52 pm
Location: New England (U.S.)
Contact:

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by crfriend »

wsherman wrote:Indeed, godspeed, John Glenn!
Indeed.

I do not recall his first orbital flight -- mainly because i was the tender age of one -- but remember his championing of the space program and his later flight on a Space Shuttle before the USA threw the technology, and most of the interest in it, away.

'Tis a sad day, indeed. If you'd not posted that, I would have.

Being reminded of what this place used to be hurts -- mainly because I've witnessed it fall in upon itself thanks to greed, avarice, and rampant stupidity. Lyndon Johnson's prophecy on the US space program came to fruition: "We're gonna p!ss it all away."

Fly high, Mr. Glenn; the heavens are now truly your realm. Full thrust. To Hell with low-Earth orbit.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
dillon
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 2719
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2013 8:12 pm
Location: southeast NC coast

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by dillon »

I was about five, I think, and can vaguely remember it, but I knew it was something really impressive. If you were a little boy in the early 1960s, you had 2 heroes...John Glenn and Mickey Mantle. (And maybe Vic Morrow from 'Combat') Later on I learned more about the early space program. He was truly among America's best and boldest.
As a matter of fact, the sun DOES shine out of my ...
User avatar
Jim
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1551
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2012 1:39 am
Location: Northern Illinois, USA

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by Jim »

Yes, he was a bit of a hero for me also. I think I remember the TV of the liftoff and recovery. I expect I was about 10 at the time.
User avatar
Fred in Skirts
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 3988
Joined: Mon Mar 14, 2016 6:48 pm
Location: Southeast Corner of Aiken County, SC USA

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by Fred in Skirts »

I remember well the watching the TV my eyes glued on it while cooking dinner. When he returned I was so happy I cried tears of joy. I had seen many lift offs that were broadcast that ended up in flames, thank God no-one were on board those.
"It is better to be hated for what you are than be loved for what you are not" Andre Gide: 1869 - 1951
Always be yourself because the people that matter don’t mind and the ones that mind don’t matter.
User avatar
crfriend
Master Barista
Posts: 14431
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 9:52 pm
Location: New England (U.S.)
Contact:

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by crfriend »

Fred in Skirts wrote:I had seen many lift offs that were broadcast that ended up in flames, thank God no-one were on board those.
That's from when we were still learning how to actually properly launch rockets and it wasn't known that the thrust actually builds up fairly slowly. This is why everything's tied down tightly while the engines build up to full thrust and then the clamps (literally) are released.

Then there's the bolt from the blue. I still recall this:
Image
from 2003.

That is Shuttle Columbia's final launch when my ex- and I were visiting Florida one time. Little did we -- or anyone else -- know that the ship was mortally wounded on ascent when she ran into a piece of her own debris. That awful fact only became known when we'd been back at home for a few days. Tears were shed.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
User avatar
Pdxfashionpioneer
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1650
Joined: Sun Oct 25, 2015 6:39 am
Location: Portland, OR, USA

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

I remember John Glenn's first orbital flight (I was 11) and am chagrined when he is credited with being the first human to orbit the Earth. He isn't he's the first American. Yuri Gargarin got in more orbits on their first manned space shot. Or at least the first they announced.
As impressed as we all were with him at the time, it wasn't until later that I learned how great he really was. He held the record for crossing the US. He set it while proving the capabilities of a new Marine Corps fighter. It was assumed his selection was an afterthought to be sure they had a pilot from all of the services that had jets (Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps). Recently I read in an aviation magazine that in fact he was the first of the Mercury 7 who was chosen and the one they wanted to first test out the capsule in orbit.
He was a good choice. He was scheduled to go more orbits but told Mission Control he'd have to cut it short because the capsule was behaving erratically so he was burning too much control fuel and he got a false warning that his heat shield was loose.
Along the way I met a fellow who had been in a church group with Sen. Glenn. He said Glenn was always prepared, organized, etc. and not likely to speak unless he was on VERY solid ground, which was almost always. My acquaintance was VERY impressed with him.
David, the PDX Fashion Pioneer

Social norms aren't changed by Congress or Parliament; they're changed by a sufficient number of people ignoring the existing ones and publicly practicing new ones.
User avatar
Kirbstone
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 5571
Joined: Sun Jun 06, 2010 7:55 pm
Location: Ireland

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by Kirbstone »

I was a student at the time, and Yuri Gagarin had done just one orbit before returning to Earth. Other Russians followed, including a lady, Maria Tereschova (My spelling might be suspect) all before the Americans managed to get Alan Sheppard on a suborbital flight & recovery.
Glenn did three orbits and it was on the cards all the time that those two would 'fly' again, Sheppard to the Moon and his famous golf shot, Glenn much later with the Shuttle.

May they both 'fly' to eternity.

Tom
Carpe Diem......Seize the Day !
User avatar
hoborob
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 346
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 4:03 pm

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by hoborob »

Crfriend unfortunately on the final launch of Columbia it was not debris that the shuttle ran into. An O-Ring failed on one of the booster rockets shortly after takeoff. The result was that burning exhaust vented directly onto the external fuel tank. That burned through and ignited the fuel contained therein. The resultant explosion blew the shuttle apart into thousands of pieces. The cockpit survived the explosion and fell to the ocean. The astronauts even survived the explosion only to be killed when the cockpit slammed into the oceans surface at a very high speed.

This information was what was later released by the NASA investigation of the accident. The fact that the astronauts did not die until the cockpit actual hit the ocean was the real starling information. Survive an explosion only to be killed a couple of minutes later when you hit the oceans surface, now that is a real tragedy.
User avatar
Judah14
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 319
Joined: Sun Aug 30, 2015 3:48 pm
Location: Philippines

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by Judah14 »

hoborob wrote:Crfriend unfortunately on the final launch of Columbia it was not debris that the shuttle ran into. An O-Ring failed on one of the booster rockets shortly after takeoff. The result was that burning exhaust vented directly onto the external fuel tank. That burned through and ignited the fuel contained therein. The resultant explosion blew the shuttle apart into thousands of pieces. The cockpit survived the explosion and fell to the ocean. The astronauts even survived the explosion only to be killed when the cockpit slammed into the oceans surface at a very high speed.

This information was what was later released by the NASA investigation of the accident. The fact that the astronauts did not die until the cockpit actual hit the ocean was the real starling information. Survive an explosion only to be killed a couple of minutes later when you hit the oceans surface, now that is a real tragedy.
You are actually referring to Challenger, as Columbia broke up during atmospheric entry.
らき☆
User avatar
beachlion
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 1627
Joined: Wed Aug 14, 2013 3:15 am
Location: 65 year The Hague, The Netherlands, then Allentown, PA, USA

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by beachlion »

I was always interested in aircrafts and space missions. In the early 60s, I studied aircraft engineering. After school, I listened to the live reports of the launches of the space program on a short wave radio. I was glued to the speaker. Later I followed the spaceprogram is good as possible on TV. I did my aprenticeship at a local newspaper during the first moon landing. During the night we were watching the TV at the newspaper. Weeks before I had made a Revell plastic model of the moon lander. I had made pictures of the scale model in a moon like environment if there was no TV connection possible. We had a back up. Speaking of fake news!
Opname 1255q.jpg
John Glenn will always be remembered as a pioneer. I salute you.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
All progress takes place outside the comfort zone - M J Bobak
User avatar
crfriend
Master Barista
Posts: 14431
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2004 9:52 pm
Location: New England (U.S.)
Contact:

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by crfriend »

Judah14 wrote:[Hoborob is] actually referring to Challenger, as Columbia broke up during atmospheric entry.
Two points for accuracy there, sir.

In the photograph I posted, which depicts Columbia's final launch, quite clearly there's enough stuff that's green to point up that it hadn't been sub-freezing for several hours, and, whilst most of the onlookers were all bundled up (Floridians do that when it gets to about 60 degrees (F)) Sapphire and I were in short-sleeves and me in a calf-length skirt. (Come to think of it, she may have been wearing a skirt, too. We scandalised the locals.)

The loss of Challenger still infuriates me to this day -- and it does so for two reasons.

One: It's almost always brought up as an engineering failure. It wasn't. Not even close. This definitely infuriates me. Get the facts straight.

Two: It was an abject case of idiotic decision-making and should have been tried as a multiple-murder case. Not a single responsible engineer signed off on that launch, and up to the last there was a key player at the manufacturer who struggled desperately -- and in vain -- to get the launch scrubbed because all the engineers knew what was going to happen. NASA Management (Dilbert-style capitalisation there) gave the "Go" because they didn't understand the technology that they'd been (allegedly) "managing" and had drunk the Kool-Aid that spaceflight is safe.

Likely root cause: There was a prominent politician who had a speech that needed to be delivered that evening, and the politician wanted something to talk about. Well, his speech-writers had to change the entire script and then teach it to him, line by line; phrase by phrase. Nobody talks about it, but I am almost certain that there was enormous pressure from very high up to launch that fateful morning when wisdom -- and engineering -- said, "Scrub.", or even a delay and a denial to fill the cryo tanks.

Now, Columbia was a failure in engineering. Nobody could have foreseen that a chunk of foam insulation could have punched holes in the carbon-fibre leading-edges of the orbiter's wing -- yet that's what happened -- and it all went to Hell over Texas on a January morning. There was no way for anything to be done; no "rescue mission" could have been mounted, nor could the shuttle execute an orbital plane-change to intercept and dock with ISS. It's just as well that nobody knew at the time that the ship was mortally wounded on ascent.

The CAIB (Columbia Accident Investigation Board) report is a very good read, and lays it all out in exquisite detail. I recommend it to anyone interested in these sorts of things.
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
User avatar
Uncle Al
Moderator
Posts: 3861
Joined: Tue Oct 21, 2003 10:07 pm
Location: Duncanville, TX USA

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by Uncle Al »

OK - - I'm changing the topic slightly with this question/comment.

Why must people make a 'double-plural' out of a combined word?
The plural of Aircraft IS AIRCRAFT. Aircraft means ALL vehicles(craft)
that travel in the air. The typical adding 's' or 'es' to a word to make it
plural doesn't work in all cases. Examples of 'types' of craft;

Watercraft:
Boat
Ship
Barge
-To make the individual 'craft' plural you add an 's' but all fall under the
main category of "Watercraft"

Aircraft:
Plane/Airplane
Helicopter
Glider
Dirigible
-Again to make the individual 'craft' plural you add an 's' but all fall under the
main category of "Aircraft"

I'm 65 years old and have loved aviation since I was 5 years old.
I retired from the airlines, a division of 'the field of aviation'.

John Glenn is/was a hero of mine, as much as all of the astronauts are/were.
Space travel is, and always will be, a new and expanding frontier for exploration.

R.I.P. Mr. Glenn

Uncle Al
(Reserve member of the Grammar Police Force)
:mrgreen: :ugeek: :mrgreen:
Kilted Organist/Musician
Grand Musician of the Grand Lodge, I.O.O.F. of Texas 2008-2009, 2015-2016,
2018-202 ? (and the beat goes on ;) )
When asked 'Why the Kilt?'
I respond-The why is F.T.H.O.I. (For The H--- Of It)
dillon
Member Extraordinaire
Posts: 2719
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2013 8:12 pm
Location: southeast NC coast

Re: Godspeed, John Glenn!

Post by dillon »

And don't forget witchcraft, Al. LOL. Which is the broad class of brooms...

Straw brooms
Push-brooms
dust-mops
Swiffers...
As a matter of fact, the sun DOES shine out of my ...
Post Reply