Who has met who concerning Astronauts
 

Hello.
Since Astronauts are somewhat on the ledger, I'd like/love to know your experiences in meeting them and famous -TEST PILOTS-.
I am very intrigued.

- I did get to meet, Edgar Mitchell-Apollo 14.at the Space Science Center in my town. I missed Russian Cosmonaut-Georgy Gretchko-(sp)
-I met James Lovell at the shaw conference center in my town.
-I met MR. WALTER SCHIRRA at the Sandiego Air/Space Museum in 1991.- A PERSONAL TOUR!!!!-Idiot I am, I was in tears.

-I wish I could meet the great test pilots. Yeager, Knight, CrossField.
Mr. CrossField was here a few years ago and I DIDN'T KNOW IT !
Yes, I know he has passed on.
-Just damn.
These are some of my heros which are real heros. What are yours ?

One of the Apollo astronauts visited my elementary school to display moonrocks when I was in second grade. I don't remember which one. I got to shake his hand and asked him what it was like to poop in zero gravity. He thought that was the best question of the day.

Neil Armstrong is still one of my primary heroes from the era. Extremely talented, awesome pilot, computed orbital mechanics in his head, and used his clout after Apollo to help technology development to help medical and other fields.

I've met many, but probably spent the most one-on-one time with Jan Davis. I used to have meetings with her at MSFC and also spent some time with her at a KSC function. I used to go to JSC all the time and you couldn't swing a dead cat without hitting an astronaut.

I have huge respect for astronauts. Each and every one of them are brilliant, charming, articulate over-achievers that have accomplished more in a few years than most people do in a lifetime.

Thomas P. Stafford has a neat museum in Weatherford OK. As he was working on some of the displays he came in our office. He spent many days there and brought in a lot of his photos. He is the guy that shot the photo of the earth from the moon that everyone has seen.

He is a super nice guy.

I took a pee in the urinal next to an astronaut at Tinker AFB, while I was on a cross country flight when I was in the Navy :). We pulled in to the transient flight line in our S-3 Viking next to a NASA T-38 - and he was in the john when I went in there....we exchanged pleasantries but I don't remember his name....

I met Buzz Aldrin as a kid. I thought that was pretty damn cool, still do.

As a kid, I admired the NASA space program and the astronauts. These days, when the history channel & Nat Geo airs the NASA documentaries, I tend to watch them again. Great testimony to what human determination can do.

To the OP: your thread title hurts my brain! Maybe "Astonauts you have met" would get the point across more eloquently. "Who has met who concerning Astronauts" sounds like the title of a paper of a B-average sophomore philosophy student...

Just sayin' SmileWavy

-Z

I saw Jim Lovell speak at an even a couple years ago. I did not get the chance to meet him, but it was very exciting to hear the Apollo 13 story from him.

Oh, I found the pic!
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1343140730.jpg

My buddy was making a documentary and I had a chance to interview Robert Crippen. What a great guy! Sad to see the shuttle program end, as were we all, but did he have some stories to tell!

Terry Hart worked at Bell Labs when I was there. I past him in the hall a few times and sat at the same lunch table with him a couple of times. We were all talking "shop" and bs-ing not space stuff. I did not know he had been in space until someone mentioned it one day when we past him in the hall. He was a smart, articulate guy who definitely did not flaunt his "I'm an astronaut" badge.
Astronaut Bio: Terry J. Hart

Totally jealous of you guys... they are my heroes and I have never met one. They are all truly magnificent humans.

Living in Clear Lake it's not unusual to run into them basically everywhere. And once you know what to look for they are very easy to spot. Most of them are USAF and there are very stringent height restrictions so they stick out like a sore thumb.

I go to a barber shop which is just plastered with mission photos signed by the various patrons. Also, a weird thing is when you go to church on Sunday and the priest says a prayer for one of the guys in the assembly that is going up to space the next couple of weeks. Definitely weird.

Chris Hadfield at the Abbotsford Airshow. We don't get many others visiting us up here. From watching the NATGEO type channels, they all seem to be a very special breed of cat. Pretty cool folks, IMO.

Cheers
JB

met David Scott
met Bob Hoover many times
met a couple of SR-71 drivers

I saw and met Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. They spoke at a big conference about 10 years ago.

My Grandfather used to see and talk to Chuck Yeager at the dump in Nevada City/ Grass Valley back in the 80's.

Simply not true.

I ran the Navy's selection board for astronauts for two years...each service guards the number of available slots religiously. You also have to divide the slots from mission specialists, payload folks, pilots, etc.

With a flight test background and as a former Navy Aerospace Engineering Duty Officer, I know a bunch of them. All smart as three smart things...with the mission specialists it can get to be a common sense filter.

Met Chuck Yeager at a AF conference many years ago...he was the keynote speaker. Have a distant relative that's a space shuttle astronaut, did 3 total missions, commanded 1.

Whoops. Slip of the tongue! Thanks for the correction Seahawk. And to think I actually know two of them pretty well and I know for a fact that they are both US Navy.

Entire Apollo 11 crew at the Dayton Air Show a bunch of years ago. My brother actually managed to get all three autographs. My understanding was that Armstrong rarely - if at all - gives out autographs. My brother was working for Boehner at that time and managed to do it very surreptitiously when they were together prepping for the meeting on a shuttle bus to the venue. Has all three of them on a poster of the event. Can't even venture a guess what that poster is worth.

i went deer hunting with an astronaut. nice fella.

i cannot remember his name. i may call my brother for it..

but anyways...he was so embarrassed, because he forgot the speed of sound..in mph. really embarrassed. didnt help that we ribbed him about it forever.

i remember..his name was john. very very nice guy. we never did get a deer. i think his dad did.

Jeez Mike,

You trying to keep me busy the entire day?? First the astronauts and now this! :)

Most of the old test pilots I know or have flown with are the "old school" era.

Are you a pilot Mike? If you are maybe I can help you a bit... there is a group of pilots called the QB's. I cannot say much more about them on an open forum but if you are a member (have been for 35 years) thats where a lot of them get together with friends for a drink and dinner. They have "hangars" in every major city in America and in many smaller places as well.

Was at a QB dinner in Ft. Worth years ago and sat with a gent at one of the tables. His name kept reminding me of something and finally once home got on the internet and looked it up. He was the first "Ace" in the jet era, shooting down 5 airplanes in the beginning of the Korean War in a F-9 Panther. You just do not normally run into people like this other than get-togethers like this.

Was at a national get together back in the mid-80's and sat down at a table for dinner. Seated across from me was Gen. Jimmy Doolittle. Really nice guy, kinda quiet but more than willing to talk and friendly.

Was at a San Diego event and found a table and a seat next to an older gent. He had several boxes and a couple of briefcases with him. We all had dinner then they introduced him to the group. Turns out that he was something like the 3 flight test pilot on the ME-262 in Germany during the war. He opened up his boxes and passed his personal logbooks around from the war, showing his test flights on the -262 and so on. He was "snatched" after the war by the Allies and ended up going to work for Consolidated Aircraft in San Diego. Funny thing was that six months later I ended up moving to Berlin Germany flying out of Tempelhof Air Base. Wish I was still in touch with him.

Ok, last one as I could go on and on all day on this subject. I am still in touch with Tony LeVier's personal sect at Lockheed. I knew Tony for years as several of my family worked/work for Lockheed and worked on many of the "black" programs. I have his autograph on several photos of him and the planes that he was the test pilot on for Lockheed. His sect and I became friends and we stayed in touch after Tony passed. She still lives in SoCal and last time I talked with her was as feisty as ever...

Mike, let me know if you are a pilot. If you have soloed I can get you into one of these meetings and show/tell you a bit more. If interested pls email (not PM, my box is almost full) me and we can go from there.

Joe A

PS you really do not want to meet Yeager. He is a JERK and no one in the aviation community really likes him. Its all about $$ to him and if you do not worship the ground he walks on he will not give you the time of day. On the other hand Gen. Bob Contreras, the man who flew the B-29 who dropped Yeager is a wonderful and friendly guy. He just came over to Phoenix and spent some time with us. Also Scotty Crossfield is the same, just down to earth nice guy....

I had the pleasure of meeting Mr Walter Schirra at Camp Pendleton, CA when I was in the Navy. A very gracious gentleman....

I worked for Aerojet, Rancho Cordova for 11 years and on occasion we would have motivational speakers stop by and take Q&A's.
A couple were astronauts. Sorry, I don't recall their names but they were young, still on active duty.
Very impressive people.
I remember how great I felt to be sitting a few feet from some space travelers.
I had the oppertunity to ask them anything I wanted to but kept my mouth shut.

I could be wrong but I don't believe there were any F9F Panther aces in the Korean war. In fact, the only Navy ace during that war flew a Corsair(!).

Bob Cardenas was name of the pilot of the B-29 that dropped Yeager.

I used to work for a guy that was a QB, great bunch of guys!

According to Wikipedia, almost all were in a F86 Sabre. They only list one non Air Force Ace and he was USMC. Of course that is just Wikipedia.

James Jabara was the first Jet ace of the war, died in 1966.

When I was in the cup scouts our scoutmaster worked for NASA. He arranged for our troop to meet all of the original Mercury seven guys. A very long time ago.

Bernie P

:eek:........A....N.....D !!!!!!!!?????????????????????????????????????
please.

It was just a meet and greet and I was only about 8 years old. All of the guys were great and answered our questions no matter how silly. I read everything I could find about about the space program after that.

Bernie P

Hello.
Where did you meet?
Any pics. by the parents?
Any remembrances of the Astronauts.
Any autographed pics.
..anything?
So great.

Sorry, no pics it was all very low key and I didn't think to get anything signed. I was a little kid and my parents didn't go. These guys weren't celebs yet.

Bernie P

Thanks.
It is great to just hear that you met them.
Thanks for sharing.

There are several astronauts who brag about meeting me but I hate it when they make such a big deal about it. :D

I visited Bill Anders (Apollo 8) at his hangar in the San Juans, father of a friend of a friend of mine. Great guy for a couple of drop in dopey pilots who just wanted to walk around the hangar and drool on his stuff. He showed us all his memorabilia in the attached office. Cool stuff it was too.

In 1980-82 I worked at FSI in Mojave CA and we had test pilots from all the services. Great beer calls on Friday afternoons. The whole org would shut down early Friday afternoon and tip a few in the hangar. As one of the frequent last standing it always boiled down to maintainers (me) and operations (pilots) cleaning up.

Spent 15 years in flight test at Boeing, more generally good people, ladies too including my (now) wife. The few D.H.'s were mostly entertaining to the rest as they set the bar higher and higher when proving thier heads were still up and locked.

Now I work with pilots in the industry and FAA/CAA's around the world. Last summer I was supporting an Alaska company certifying a synthetic vision system for corporate aircraft in Denver. One evening four of us were sitting in the hotel bar eating the free garbage, showing each other pictures of our airplanes on our iphones and laughing about what losers we were acting like in the eyes of our significant others.

It was another great night!

My wife and I met Robert Duvall at a movie premiere... does that count? Probably not... it was the premiere of The Great Santini, not Deep Impact.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1343333956.jpg

There have been three from SC... Charles Bolden, Charles Duke, and Ron McNair... I wish I could say I've met even one of them, but I haven't.

A lot of interesting people with interesting lives and experiences.
Thanks for sharing.

My son went on Rotary Exchange to USA for a year - stayed in Rome NY.

Turned out that with his first host family the dad was an ex NASA test pilot and was involved in a lot of the training of Apollo and Shuttle crew. He met his wife during this period - she was Jim Lovell's assistant.

Needless to say, the memorabilia in their home office was quite impressive!

Tim

Met Gordo Cooper at the Camarillo CA Airshow. Must have been 2003 ?? He died in 2004 and I know he died not long after I met him. He was like the "Grand Marshal" of the airshow that year. He was well past his prime of course but it was cool to actually meet one of the "Original Seven". I still remember well the Mercury days. But you know, I just cant seem to remember what I had for lunch today.