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Author
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Topic: Astronauts' acts of kindness: your stories
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Spaceguy5 Member Posts: 427 From: Pampa, TX, US Registered: May 2011
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posted 11-25-2011 12:33 PM
Not quite from an astronaut, but a year or two ago, I had an offer from Shannon Lucid's family to stay at their house in Florida to see one of the last shuttle launches. Sadly, I wasn't able to take up the offer. My family's vet and close friend is related to her. |
Dave_Johnson Member Posts: 106 From: Registered: Feb 2014
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posted 08-29-2014 10:47 PM
In September of 2010, I had made an amateur radio contact with Doug Wheelock when he was on the ISS. A few years after he landed, I made another "contact" with him, but this time it was on twitter. Over a few more months with the occasional interaction, I asked him if he was going to be at any public appearances when he tweeted that he was in Chicago, as I would like my son to meet him. He said that he wasn't, but that he'd be glad to meet him, and said "let's make it happen soon". I was blown away by his offer. Less than a year later, while I was working on setting up a trip to Houston, Doug announced that he would be making an appearance at the Challenger Center in Normal Illinois, which is only an hour and a half drive for me. At the end of our family meeting him at this appearance, he thanked me for driving there to meet him. Here, he traveled over a thousand miles to make a public appearance, and he was thanking me for driving a hundred miles to meet him. A class act! |
E2M Lem Man Member Posts: 846 From: Los Angeles CA. USA Registered: Jan 2005
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posted 08-30-2014 12:56 AM
Well I owe this to you all:I lived down the street from North American in Long Beach, CA. I used to ride my bike to Downey to see the closed plant gates and wonder? I would see Apollo's being loaded at the airport. I would meet astronauts and be tongue tied. But as a young civil air patrol cadet I once shared a salute from Buzz Aldrin. In 1978, my friend Andy Monsen and I started the Organization to Support Space Exploration (OSSE) and we did the first Apollo 11 recreation moonwalk. Today it would be called cosplay. He made fair Apollo A7L recreations and they did the walk in a 25 minute version! The first time we did it at the California Museum of Science and Industry (Now Science Center) Deke Slayton arrived to give a talk and sat with me at the Mission Control desk. Then Andy broke away from the script and I asked innocently, "Deke just walked into the Control Center, you have any message for him?" Andy came back "Deke Slayton are you a turtle?" Deke gave the proper reply REAL LOUD! That night we became fast friends — drinking toasts and talking about Gus Grissom and flying. He signed the spacesuit mockups and Andy's astronaut doll and my picture of him. After that whenever we met we met as old friends. When I started working at the museum in 1984, the head volunteer was Mariwade Douglas, the wife of the Mercury astronaut physician Bill Douglas. When they started the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation in May 1986, I was their escort. After Al Shepard did a "Nightline" interview we all entered a narrow hallway with me leading the way with the five Project Mercury astronauts, "The Right Stuff" music going in my head and Alan Shepard asked "Where's the restroom?" I almost replied "Do it in ze suit!" My best story was the last night we worked on the moon set of "From the Earth to the Moon" — after working for a month with Dave Scott he asked if there was anything he could do for me? We went outside to the moon surface and got in the lunar rover and Jim and Dave again roved around the moon's dusty surface! |
ea757grrl Member Posts: 729 From: South Carolina Registered: Jul 2006
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posted 08-30-2014 06:38 AM
I've only met one astronaut (and both times I met him, he was everything you'd hope he'd be, and more), but I'll never forget being at the STS-124 launch in 2008 and watching several astronauts mingling with the crowd inside the Apollo/Saturn V Center as we waited. I was too starstruck to go up to any of them, but I did get to see them very happily meeting folks, signing autographs, posing for pictures and making it a great day for everybody.During the wait for launch I witnessed a young man in his late teens engaged in conversation with one of the astronauts. It quickly became obvious the young man had asked where the men's room was! The astronaut couldn't have been nicer or more patient about it, and that cemented my belief these folks are incredible ambassadors for the space program. When you can handle that kind of inquiry with that kind of grace, what else needs to be said? | |
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