posted 09-28-2014 01:11 PM               

When Alan Bean visited Ponte last year he spoke to two groups of school children on the Friday morning. As a consequence there was a run on tickets from the parents of some of those children.

Fred will be giving a talk to a school in Sheffield on Thursday so a repeat of the Bean experience may see any remaining tickets snapped up PDQ.

Apologies for not posting more auction lot photos as promised. The framer and his wife are expecting a baby anytime now and the guy has a lot on his plate as a consequence.

posted 09-30-2014 04:28 AM               

Ken will take orders for April at the Haise event and tickets will be mailed out at a later date so please be sure to give Ken either a sae with your ticket payments or an additional payment to cover p&p; Ken will tell you what p&p will be on the day.

posted 09-30-2014 09:14 AM               

If you have paid Ken already for the April tickets you can collect them from him in person at the Haise event. If you have paid postage for the April event you can carry that over to October 2015 tickets instead.

posted 10-01-2014 05:06 AM               

Those who have sent a sae for April 2015 tickets can pick them up after the Fred Haise lecture - I am not going to post those out before Freddo; (they can re-use the sae for ** in October 2015.) Anyone paying at the talk has a choice, pay £40 and put their name in a book and send sae when they get home (cost is two stamps plus two envelopes which is more than £1) or for £1, put details on an envelope provided and I will post tickets out on the Monday.

Or... you could just bring your own sae!

Anyone wanting to pay by BACS can put details on an envelope, send £1 extra and I will post them out when payment comes through.

posted 10-06-2014 04:22 AM               

Alan Bean, and others, were concerned they would mask the projection screen behind and like many of us getting longer in the tooth, their peripheral vision is not what it once was.

Quite simply, several have expressed the concern they might fall off the black stage floor!

posted 10-07-2014 05:09 PM               

There now remains just one row of available seats in the theatre. A sell-out is just days away.

May I remind everybody who asked to purchase Paolo Attivissimo's excellent book "Moon Hoax Debunked" (around 10 in total); please make yourselves known to Paolo in the bar at the dinner or the auditorium for the lecture and settle up with him in person. I passed each and everybody's name to Paolo but I suspect it will be easier for you to all find him than the other way around.

posted 10-08-2014 12:52 PM               

In fact, when the ground work was being done to get Neil Armstrong over about three years ago Professor Brian Cox agreed to introduce the great man and chair the post lecture Q&A.

Unfortunately, things did not pan out.

Incidentally, I mentioned earlier that the framer making a number of the auction items is expecting. He has finished more auction pieces but his wife is due any time now so you will understand our reluctance to badger him.

posted 10-13-2014 11:52 AM               

• The mint condition Gene Cernan 10x8 glossy was signed by Cernan at the Sheffield Film Festival in June. This, along with the signed movie poster previewed previously would not have been possible without the support of Mark Stewart Productions, and Gareth Dodds in particular.
  

• The STS-125 piece includes a flown payload bay sample, awarded to NASA employees following the final Hubble servicing mission. From memory, the photo of the Atlantis exhibit is approximately 16x12, so this should give you an idea of the scale.
  

• I believe the Wally Schirra piece is a signed litho with impeccable provenance.

I hope these images give those attending a flavour of the auction. Fred Haise signed displays and a shuttle EMU (space suit) cross section will be amongst other auction pieces on the night.

Bidding can only be made in person and remember, a percentage of any profits from the Fred Haise event will go to UNICEF with the remainder going towards the next Space Lectures event in April 2015.

posted 10-13-2014 02:23 PM               

Some potential speakers would be unrealistic; John Young for instance is known to be unwell. Others perhaps prohibitively expensive given the kind of return 475 lecture tickets and 130 dinner tickets would provide.

If money were no object we would have had Neil Armstrong several years ago but not enough people were prepared to fork out £100 for a lecture ticket; surprising given that he sold out around 500 seats in Dublin in 2002 for that kind of cash.

If we had known back then (2010) how little time remained for Neil I wonder what the response might have been...

posted 10-14-2014 05:23 AM               

As for guests for future shows, the names that would really jump out for me as on a par with the Mattingly capture would be:

• Mike Collins
  
• Bill Anders
  
• Frank Borman
  
• Jack Schmitt
  
• Jim Lovell
  
• Gene Cernan

posted 10-14-2014 11:47 AM               

Any of Borman, Collins or Schmitt would do - the only living Apollo astronauts I've not met.

posted 10-16-2014 03:51 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by moorouge:
I may be a lone voice in the wilderness, but does it have to be an astronaut? I'm certain, in fact know, that there many interesting stories to be told from the Apollo days by those who made the flights successful but never left the ground.

---

Several of my friends on here may know that I have developed an obsession (I prefer to call it 'interest') with the great men of the Gemini/Apollo Mission Control Center. So, for what it's worth, here are my choices:

• Chris Kraft (probably not going to happen now, but just imagine....)
  
• Gene Kranz
  
• Gerry Griffin
  
• Glynn Lunney
  
• Jerry Bostick
  
• Steve Bales - "We're....we're go on that, Flight" (1202 Alarm)
  
• John Aaron

posted 10-17-2014 04:27 AM               

I have to question those people who profess an interest in the space programme but are only prepared to come to lectures when an astronaut is present. Perhaps their interest would be better defined as having a personality interest rather than one that encompasses all aspects of the M-G-A programmes.

posted 10-17-2014 04:29 AM               

• Jack Lousma
  
• Fred Gregory
  
• Mike Mullane
  
• Hoot Gibson
  
• Story Musgrave
  
• Chris Ferguson

posted 10-17-2014 04:33 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by moorouge:
Perhaps their interest would be better defined as having a personality interest rather than one that encompasses all aspects of the M-G-A programmes.

---

posted 10-17-2014 06:20 AM               

He was selected as a MOL astronaut before joining NASA; was CapCom for the Skylab missions as well as for ASTP; flew the Enterprise and commanded a shuttle flight; became the first ex-astronaut to act as NASA Administrator.

posted 10-17-2014 06:21 AM               

The increased exposure to these events courtesy of social media, collectSPACE and the likes in recent years has undoubtedly contributed to full house or near sell out attendances at an almost monotonous rate and long may that continue. But inevitably, as the MGA astronauts age Space Lectures will need to look to other potential speakers. The excellent feedback provided by this community is an invaluable contribution to this process.

My only regret is that Ken Willoughby had not started these events 10 or 15 years earlier. Just think of who we might have had over had he done so.

posted 10-17-2014 01:11 PM               

I appreciate Scott has been to Autographica on previous occasions, but to see him conduct a lecture would be a fascinating, and rewarding, experience.

posted 10-20-2014 04:33 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Blackarrow:
Shatner and Nimoy? Bizarrely, I think that would be a great success, particularly if they talked about how sci-fi influenced space-travel in the 1960s.

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