T O P I C R E V I E W |
AstroAutos | I was just browsing on the net today and completely by chance I realised that Ed Mitchell and Tom Stafford were born on the exact same day! (September 17th 1930.) I'm sure many of you guys already knew that, but it's news to me and I think it's really cool. It leads me to the question - does anyone else know any interesting facts about astronauts or their lives that they could contribute to this forum? |
Delta7 | Unusual or unlikely occupations held by future astronauts: - Gus Grissom: short-order cook.
- Stuart Roosa: Smoke Jumper.
- James van Hoften: Hot Tub salesman.
- Dave Brown: Circus acrobat.
- Donn Eisele: zoo keeper.
- Jim McDivitt: janitor.
- Sally Ride: tennis pro.
- Ed Mitchell: ranch hand.
- Pinky Nelson: baseball prospect.
- Leland Melvin: NFL football player
- Sonny Carter: professional soccer player.
- Dick Scobee: airplane mechanic.
- Mario Runco: State Trooper.
- Terry Wilcutt: school teacher.
- Drew Feustel: auto mechanic.
- Jose Hernandez: migrant worker.
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Robert Pearlman | Don't forget Leroy Chiao, whose first crew* assignment was at a McDonald's in Walnut Creek, California when he was 16 (which gives this poster added meaning). *McDonald's refers to its restaurant employees as crew members. |
ColinBurgess | ...or Al Worden, who was a male cheerleader at West Point! |
328KF | Colin, all you had to say was cheerleader... we could assume the rest. |
KSCartist | Don't forget Pam Melroy - born on September 17, 1961. So that date has a trifecta. Also Tom Stafford was announced as an astronaut on his 32nd birthday in 1962. I know all this because I was born on 9/17 five years before Pam. |
spaced out | quote: Originally posted by AstroAutos: I was just browsing on the net today and completely by chance I realised that Ed Mitchell and Tom Stafford were born on the exact same day! (September 17th 1930.)
Don't forget that if you take a random group of just 23 individuals there is a greater than 50% chance that two will share the same birthday.By the time group 5 came along you actually had 55 astronauts and a roughly 98% chance that at least two of those astronauts would share a birthday. Of course being born in the same year is an additional coincidence but given that they were mostly born between around 1930 and 1935 it's still highly likely that you'd get two with the exact same birth date. |
ColinBurgess | Of all the hundreds of people chosen to fly into space, the only one who shares my birthday of March 2nd also had the shortest NASA astronaut career of all - Duane Graveline. But then again, I also share my birthday with Tom Wolfe... |
davidcwagner | Trivia: Lefties vs. Righties How many Apollo/Gemini/Mercury astronauts are left handed? According to Alan Bean (a lefty) there is a much higher ratio of lefties in the astronaut corp than in the general population. |
MCroft04 | Same thing has been said about geologists, so I'm not sure that is necessarily a good thing!
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AJ | Is Beano ambidextrous, then? Because he signs autographs with his right hand. At least he has on several occasions I've seen him. |