FRIDAY SURPRISE: Yes, I am a space cadet!

Friday, March 02, 2007 Filed in: Technology, Friday Surprise!, Completely irrelevant
Perhaps it's normal when one reaches a certain age, but occasionally I have small episodes of nostalgia, and one of the things I miss is the thrill of our space program. Oh, for the days when people would gather around the television (black-and-white, of course) just to watch one of our beautiful Saturn IV rockets blast into space - secure in the belief that with each one we were leaping ahead of our Cold War nemesis. ("Take that, Comrades!")

It was exciting on many levels, and we never missed a liftoff - they were big events. I remember getting up very early one morning to watch Apollo 11 blast off for the moon; heck, we even waited for the splashdowns! (For those of you born after 1980, that's how astronauts landed before the wheeled Shuttle was developed.)

Not surprisingly, I was thrilled when I came across the International Space Artifact Collection at www.hightechscience.org They have artifacts from both the U.S. and Soviet space projects, and have lots of great pictures on their website. Cool stuff!

Soyuz_Clock_1a.JPG
Authentic Soyuz spacecraft clock

(Trivia time: can anyone tell me the connection between the U.S. space program and one of my favorite revolvers??)

-=[ Grant ]=-
© 2010 Grant Cunningham Click to email me!