The Three Camps of TRF users... Which are you?

Born just after Gagarin and Shepard's flights, and just prior to Glenn's first orbits. That should narrow it down. I was old enough to be riveted by the Apollo program, watching as many moments as I could on TV, and saving all the newspaper clippings.

Mark

I am pre Ham. The first monkey to go to space.

Post-Sputnik, pre-John Glenn. Remember vividly watching the moon landing on the old console b/w TV. Got to stay up late that night!

Woody's Workshop said:

Holy Moly!!!
Was you in the Paciffic or Europe, ar too young for that.
Which means you seen Korea & maybe VN?

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Saw Sputnik 1 in the night sky in October of 1957 and saw Vanguard explode on the pad in 1958. Crossed the Pacific when JFK sent me to Korea in 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis happened while I was stationed there. Crossed the Pacific again in 1963 only to see JFK assassinated, live on black and white television. Almost got sent to Vietnam from Ft. Hood, Texas by LBJ in 1964. I was lucky.

I should have stayed in school and brushed my teeth more often!

Larry Curcio said:

Oh Man!

You may have heard of jalopies,
You heard the noise they make,
Let me introduce you to my Rocket '88.
Yes it's great, just won't wait,
Everybody likes my Rocket '88.
Gals will ride in style,
Movin' all along.

V-8 motor and this modern design,
My convertible top and the gals don't mind
Sportin' with me, ridin' all around town for joy.
Blow your horn, Rocket, blow your horn

Step in my Rocket and-don't be late,
We're pullin' out about a half-past-eight.
Goin' on the corner and havin' some fun,
Takin' my Rocket on a long, hot run.
Ooh, goin' out,
Oozin' and cruisin' and havin' fun

Now that you've ridden in my Rocket '88,
I'll be around every night about eight.
You know it's great, don't be late,
Everybody likes my Rocket '88.
Gals will ride in style,
Movin' all along.

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ROCK AND ROLL ! :headbang:

Missed Sputnik 1 by nine months.
Can still remember where I was when JFK was assassinated.
Was horrified when Apollo 1 burned killing Virgil Grissom, Roger Chaffee and Edward White.
Was P.O. that the first moon landing missed my birthday by three days.

1972: Last moon walk, Apollo 17. Not even a twinkle in my dad's eye. I was born 2 yrs later.
1982: First shuttle launch. I am 8.
1986: Challenger tragedy. I am 11. (and I still remember hearing the news)
2011: Last shuttle launch. I am 36 and have a 10 yr old son by then.

Born in 1968 so pre moon. I was just old enough to remember seeing men launched on Saturn V rockets.


Mark Koelsch
Sent from my iPhone using Rocketry Forum

markkoelsch said:

Born in 1968 so pre moon. I was just old enough to remember seeing men launched on Saturn V rockets.

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I wasn't old enough to remember men launched on Saturn V rockets, but I do remember the first Shuttle launches, as well as the return of Skylab. Pisses me off that we allowed Skylab, and Mir to burn up rather than boosting them to a high stable orbit as the first exhibits of a future Space Museum.

Funny thing though... My uncle is Post moon.

I came into this world post-sputnik, but only by a few weeks.

I was born six months before Gene Cernan landed Apollo 17.

If you look closely at my Apogee Saturn V, you will see that it is Apollo 17.

I was born in 1955. I can remember watching every manned launched from Alan Sheppard through the last of Apollo. During the Gemini missions, it seems that we were launching every 2 months or so. Great times. And, now we catch a ride to the space station on a Russian built rocket (with roots in old Soviet technology), with no plans to go back to the moon or beyond. Very sad. I'm really hoping Space-X can return us to the fore front of space exploration. Phil L.

shrox said:

Pre-lunar, post Kennedy.

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+1. I was 6 when Neal and Buzz landed


Launching rockets (or missiles in my case) is so easy a chimp could do it. Read a step, do a step, eat a banana.

Sent from my iPad Air using Rocketry Forum.

President Eisenhower was in his last year of his Presidency.

I remember being six years old and in a Panama City Florida motel room, desperately wanting to go to sleep and my mother would not let me till I'd seen the first steps of man on the moon.

I turned twelve when Eagle landed on the Moon.

watched Neil step off the lem in glorious B&W(good thing he didn't slip, that could have changed the 1st words considerably ).
Rex

RocketMike said:

I remember being six years old and in a Panama City Florida motel room, desperately wanting to go to sleep and my mother would not let me till I'd seen the first steps of man on the moon.

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My story is about the same. I was seven, living in Niceville, Florida. I vaguely recall my mom waking me up to see "men walk on the moon" to which I replied, "aw, I've seen that!"

-- Roger

I was born about two weeks before Scott Carpenter flew Aurora 7.

I was 10 3/4 when Apollo 11 landed.

Our family was driving home from a camping trip in northern Michigan while they made the descent to the surface and we listened to the whole thing on the car radio. I remember the exact stretch of road we were on, on US-10 outside of Cadillac, MI. when they touched down.

Because I was a complete space maven (I had several of the flight manual books, etc) and had watched the preview/simulation shows, I was pretty much able to follow out the calls of the descent as they got closer. You could tell Armstrong was kind of hovering around looking for an open place to land, and also that fuel was getting pretty low. Aldrin was calling out altitude (40 feet, 30 feet, 20) and you could just kind of subtract in your head and figure they were under 10 feet. Then there was a pause and Armstrong yells out, 'contact light!"

My dad pushed it to get home in time for the moonwalk that night on TV.

A year and six months before the last Apollo Mission.



TA

Born in 69 - just a few days before the launch. I grew up feeling a close connection to space exploration - even though my family had no connection to any space program. Morton-Thiokol was just over the hill from my town though, so we had a lot of school presentations on space programs and especially the shuttle. As a kid, I flew a lot of Estes rockets and built a lot of Revell plastic models of space vehicles. In my teens I built the complete shuttle and launch complex model that Revell offered - that was a lot of work (I still have an unbuilt kit of that in my basement)

conman13 said:

I was born on the day John Glenn returned to the moon

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Well, when you consider that John Glenn never made it to the moon I must assume that you mean Glenn's return to space as a Senator.

So who voted for option 3?

Was born a little over a year before the first moon walk; remember bits of the last one...

I was born the year they launched the next to last Martin Viking rocket.....

Funny that someone voted that we had never been to the moon, in the poll. Must be a guy doing it for comic effect, as I fail to believe anyone on here really believes in the silly we-did-not-go-the-moon conspiracy.

I use that belief in that conspiracy theory as a pass/fail intelligence test....

You guys must have overlooked troj's posting.

I was born the in the year that the U.S. performed the final test launch of a captured V2 rocket. It was a year before the first Redstone missile was launched, and 5 years before Sputnik was launched.

James Dean checked out to make room for me.