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In message , Pat Flannery
writes Mike Flugennock wrote: So now, I'm wondering what the generational markers are for those of us who were school kids pre-Mercury, as opposed to post-Mercury -- between the kids who could only look at books and imagine what rocket ships looked like, and the kids who had TV's wheeled into the lunchroom so we could watch the Gemini launches and who knew _exactly_ what a _real_ rocket ship looked like. In my case (born same year you were) the markers would be: 1.) Did you demand to your parents that the barber give you a crewcut, because that's what the astronauts had? 2.) Did you habitually use the term "AOK" when talking? But wasn't AOK some horrible journalistic invention? I can't remember when I learned the difference between "roger" and "wilco", though. -- Save the Hubble Space Telescope! Remove spam and invalid from address to reply. |
#23
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On Wed, 26 May 2004 22:58:49 -0500, Doug...
wrote: Now, of course, Dad could (and did) borrow demonstrators and bring them home. I learned how to type on a 1967 Royal typewriter, and got really fast at it on a 1969 Royal Electric. But the most fun thing was the 1970 HP calculator. Exactly like you described, Mike -- with the nixie- tube display. Only did the basic functions of a calculator (I think it was a four-function), but it was really, really kewl to use. And yes, I really thought it looked a lot like the DSKY display, too. ....My first electronic calculator was one TI put out. About the size of a large paperback book, did only basic functions with one memory entry, and had a teal-blue display that a tube, but not a Nixie. Can't remember what that was, but a lot of early hand-held video games used it because it was visible in normal lighting, unlike an LED. ....Prior to that, it was a big honking IBM mechanical calculator, Damn thing weighed about 100 lbs, louder than a printing press when calculating, had scientific precision up to nine digits, depending on where you set the decimal point by rotating these thin rods from dark to light. You had to see this in operation to believe it could work, and it had so many internal mechanical parts that it had to be oiled every six months based on the instructiion manual. It ran off ungrounded AC, and the warning lable was similar to that on a TV - open this and you'll probably get electrocuted, natch. Damn thing is in my parents' garage somewhere. One day I'll find that thing and see if it still works after 40 years of storage... OM -- "No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society - General George S. Patton, Jr |
#24
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On 26 May 2004 19:08:51 -0700, (Allen Thomson)
wrote: Rick DeNatale wrote Doug wrote: Hmmmmm... I was born in October of 1955, about two years "even" before Sputnik. I don't recall Sputnik's launch, but I was alive then. I *do* recall Mercury. I was born 10 years and 1 day after the Pearl Harbor attack. OK, I'll play too. ....Yeah, why not? I was born the day after one of Glenn's launch cancellations, and thanks to living in Houston during the early boom years up to August 1st, 1966, I was exposed to the infomation glut that was required to produce an Astrobuff of the First Generation. For me, the first mission I can vividly recall was the launch of GT-4, including the coverage of the spacewalk in audio only. I remember pretty much every mission from that point on, as I only missed one bit of coverage between GT-4 and STS-55(*), and that was the ALT for the Shuttle. Pop was ****ed because I'd failed a math class, and decided to punish me for the entire summer just to be a *******. Part of that punishment was not being allowed to watch the ALT coverage. The resulting arguement that ensued lasted through the day, and while I didn't get to see the ALT coverage I still won the war, because I made it very clear that sort of **** was never going to happen again. Apparently the arguement given was convincing enough, because he never tried to pull that **** again, and that's been almost 30 years since. ....But I digress. I also had quite a few space-related toys, including that three-stage "Atlas" with all the fins and the spring-loaded satellite launching third stage. I also had a similar cheap plastic Saturn 5, which was wild because the entire CSM stack was still attached to the adapter shroud, and at the base was a bas-relief chrome representation of the back end of the LM. This was also stuck on top of an S-II stage with a spring-loaded pop launcher that a) popped the CSM stack off into orbit, and b) would put your eye out if you weren't careful. ....I also built a lot of those model kits that came out back then. By the time I got into kit building, all the Hawk and Lindbergh and Willy Ley kits were out of production and off the shelves. I got the Space Tug when the local five-and-dime manager bought a lot of surplus kits from a store closing, and there was one in the pile, complete with chrome-plated astronauts. I discovered two others in the "Space Pursuit" kit - one being the Convair shuttle, the other being something else I can't recall - but for the most part every other kit was based on actual NASA designs. Which is why when the Monogram 1/24 CSM came out, I gladly set my 1/32 totally inaccurate Block "I" CSM on fire in the back yard. I also had the LM landing kit, and at least three of the CSM/LM minikits that Revell put out en masse. And, of course, the Revell Saturn 5 kit that I got the Chrisnukkah it was released. That still stands out as one of my favorite years. ....I had them all up to that one huge Shuttle kit that Monogram put out, but never did get into the proto ISS concepts as I was moving away from kit building at that time for other pursuits - CB Radio being one of them, girls being the other. But every now and then I'd stop and look over the kits and buy one. Most of them are still in-box and unassembled due to lack of time, but one day I'll finally find the time again. Probably when I retire :-P (*) I had a contract gig in Dallas that required me to travel on the day of the launch, and Southwest Airlines at the time wasn't allowing personal radios on board due to some problem with the electronics interefering with the navigational systems. They wound up loosening the rules a few weeks later, but that was too late for me to try and catch some coverage of the launch. Not that I'd probably have found any... OM -- "No ******* ever won a war by dying for | http://www.io.com/~o_m his country. He won it by making the other | Sergeant-At-Arms poor dumb ******* die for his country." | Human O-Ring Society - General George S. Patton, Jr |
#25
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John Beaderstadt wrote: All the late 1950's-early 1960's newsgroup crew... What about us late '40s - early '50s folk? Friend, I suspect you are not of the Body Of Landru.... I remember the *initial* broadcasts of Disney's Man in Space. Sputnik and Echo 1 are clear memories. I remember the Cold War, "Duck and Cover," Jodrell Bank pirating the Soviet lunar photos, and all the rest. Yeah, but you're going to look pretty damn silly wearing a Col. McCauley helmet, stomping about in rubber galoshes, and eating toothpaste in fourth grade. By the way, did Spielberg get the dinosaur's colors right in "Jurrasic Park"? Pat (running) P.S. The helmet in question: http://www.vttbots.com/Graphics/muse...auly_small.jpg |
#26
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William C. Keel wrote: Sure was. I as pre-Sputnik by about two weeks. One early memory was seeing an Echo (must have been 2) go overhead with some older family. Boy, those things were bright! The S-II stage that put up Skylab was very bright also... Pat |
#27
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Sam Seiber wrote: Pat, Somewhere in there you missed a reference to a slide rule. I recall using the beasties in high school. We still have a beautifully made one sitting around down where I work, with a sheet full of nearly microscopic print that tells you how to use it. I still get a kick out of that crank-driven cylindrical navigational calculator that got discussed here a while back. |
#28
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Mike Flugennock wrote: I was an astronaut in the Cub Scout pageant in DC in 1965, me and six other kids in my pack at Fort Myer. I made my helmet by coating a balloon with papier mache and spray-painting it silver. Came out awesome. My Cub Scout space helmet was an inverted plastic garbage can with vertical rectangular holes cut in it, and strips of Plexiglas glued over the holes...it looked like something out of Jules Verne.... tell me you weren't as dumb as I was, and didn't try to build that Lunar gravity simulator outlined in "Boy's Life". Pat |
#29
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Pat Flannery wrote:
William C. Keel wrote: Sure was. I as pre-Sputnik by about two weeks. One early memory was seeing an Echo (must have been 2) go overhead with some older family. Boy, those things were bright! The S-II stage that put up Skylab was very bright also... I'm sure I saw the Skylab stage at least once. On the workshop's launch day, I skipped high-school calculus class to try working out (graphically) whether we'd have a sighting opportunity soon after launch. I was out watching, and gave up to go back inside. About 5 minutes later my dad came in calling for me, as Skylab, the only S-II ever to make orbit, and a number of bits of debris (many of which I gather weren't supposed to be there...) paraded by overhead. Once I figired out that data type Issue in IDL, I'm finally better at predicting passes... Bill Keel |
#30
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Doug... wrote: And, watching Man in Space, I used to own *all* those models! I wonder if any of the episodes of "Men Into Space" (the actual title) survive? IIRC, they were done on film, since live video would have made a lot of the effects more difficult. The models were of the Disney stuff- they were made by the now extinct model company Strombecker; AFAIK there weren't any models from the "Men into Space TV" series...but you can still get the episodes: http://tvoldies.net/store/index.php?...5529 94a55f78 So you'd think some of the film would survive. I, for one, would LOVE to see someone put them all on DVD. Can y'all remember the book they released based on the TV show? It was a series of short stories, which didn't really have "novelizations" of the TV episodes, but rather had short stories exploring various episodes in Scott MacCauley's career. I've got a McCauley comic book; but not a true book based on the show. Pat |
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