From Chris Jones :
Dean Markley writes:

On Friday, January 13, 2017 at 3:36:16 PM UTC, Chris Jones wrote:
Jeff Findley writes:

In article ,
says...

Since Debbie Reynolds died a couple of weeks ago, I have not seen
anyone talking about her connection with space history.

I personally have no idea what you're talking about. Please enlighten
us.

She starred in "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" on Broadway. The play was
the inspiration for Gus Grissom calling Gemini 3 Molly Brown.

You're calling that a connection to the space program? LOL.

I trust that's addressed to the original poster, not me. I was offering
a supposition as to what was meant; a very quick look at Ms. Reynold's
life turned up nothing better.


"Nothing better"? Are people in this forum really this eager to dismiss this topic as a "pretty thin connection", and scoffingly "LOL" at it? One operating premise is that people here share a common interest in space history, and I myself find the Debbie Reynolds angle to be a fascinating aspect of the full story.

A book can be written on this topic. Literally an entire book.
For anyone here who might actually be interested, this story could have a working title along the lines of...

vvvvv
Debbie Reynolds and NASA: The Unsinkably Charming Actress
And Her Connection to the Deaths of Gus Grissom Among Other Astronauts
^^^^^


A general attitude is that space history is a done deal. That you could take all the stories that have already been published about the period up through, say, the 1970s, and that you can place them all in a box and that is all that ever needs to be said about it. People act as though space historians have done a thoroughly adequate job, and that such a box of stories is, for all practical purposes, 100% complete.

I don't see it that way at all. I see space history, the body of effort up through now, published in books and magazines and movies and such, to be a total shambles. A travesty of errors and misinformation, when it comes to the big picture, let alone the finer points.

My own estimate on that box of stories is that it is only about 50% complete. In the rest of the story, Debbie Reynolds plays a fascinating role.

I would hope that at a minimum, members of this forum would at least be open to the possibility that a thread titled "Debbie Reynolds and Space History" might contain something that is non-trivial.

~ CT