Posts: 222
From: California
Registered: Jun 2015

posted 03-14-2023 03:09 PM               

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In the 1967 movie "Countdown," James Caan plays an astronaut (Lee Stegler) with an eight year old son named Stevie. The boy's favorite plaything is a rubber rat squeaky toy. It's actually a pet toy but Stevie has named it "Jose" and carries it with him everywhere attached to a lanyard hung around his neck like a security badge.

Disapproving, Stegler tells his son that he's too old for the toy. But Stevie claims that "Jose" is a mouse, not a rat, and refuses to part with it. He says that his mom won't buy him a real mouse.

On launch day, Stegler is surprised to see that Chiz (Robert Duvall), his back up, has hung "Jose" from the instrument panel of his Gemini spacecraft. Duvall explains that it was Stevie’s idea. Later, as Stegler wanders lost on the surface of the moon he is holding two objects. An American flag and "Jose." I guess that's the first zero-g indicator.

Posts: 50149
From: Houston, TX
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 03-14-2023 03:12 PM               

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The first zero-g indicator flew in 1961 on Vostok 1. Yuri Gagarin took a small doll with him on the flight to watch it float. (The same doll later flew again on a Soyuz flight to the Mir space station to mark the 30th anniversary of Gagarin's mission.)

It is unclear when the tradition took hold as a regular practice...

Posts: 1672
From: Washington, DC, USA
Registered: Apr 2003