*HTML is ON *UBB Code is ON Smilies Legend
Smilies Legend
[i]Space shuttle astronaut Robert "Hoot" Gibson, an ex-Navy fighter pilot, recalls that on launch day, the schedule gives the crew about 15 minutes between suiting up and heading to the pad. During that period, the astronauts would stand around a high table in the suit-up area, joined by the Chief of the Astronaut Office and the Director of Flight Operations. A deck of cards would appear, and they would play a homegrown game called Possum Fargo. Five-card hands were dealt. No betting, no further cards. Just a rapid deal. Whoever had the lowest hand won the round. "It's like poker, 180 degrees out," says Gibson. "The lowest you could get was 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 [a 6 gave you a straight]. That was the winningest hand." The crew could not leave until the commander of the mission won a hand — for good luck. "You were not ready to walk out of there until he won," says Gibson. He doesn't know who created the game or who named it. But he played it on every one of his five missions. Four-time shuttle astronaut Tom Jones has a slightly different recollection of Possum Fargo. "We watched the commander play the card game in the suit-up room against the chief of the Flight Crew Operations Directorate," says Jones. "Rest of the crew does not play, and I don't know the game. My opinion is that the kind of people I crewed with did not get there by being superstitious, so it's a trait bred out of the astronaut corps for the most part." But he admits that the commander had to get that low hand before launch. "Once you lose, you can go out to the pad," says Jones. Or win, he means, with that lousy hand.[/i]
If you have previously registered, but forgotten your password, click here.
*** Click here to review this topic. ***
Contact Us | The Source for Space History & Artifacts
Copyright 1999-2024 collectSPACE. All rights reserved.