A bigger splash!

Picture Info:
Postcard Caption "Recovery of Lieutenant Commander Shepard, the first U.S man in space, after his 302 mile ride down the atlantic Missile range". Plastichrome Postcard circa 1960 (?)

Here’s a dramatic shot of Alan Shepard being pulled from the drink after his first sub-orbital trip. Looking at this 40 plus year card a handful of things struck me firstly I don’t know what formal process developed the design, colour scheme and typography of the American military planes etc but some how their planes always look great.

The stars and typeface are simple and clear, I always like the little labels on the side of places for ducts and vents and escape hatches. There is something about this era’s craft that’s appealing both the chopper and the capsule are close to the planes of ww11 in design. They are lithe and simple none of the chunky excess of the shuttle or modern military choppers they are made up of slim simple forms with ribs and welds visible. They just look cool some how.

Another thing about this shot is that considering this was all happening out at sea and the main goal was to rescue old Alan and his capsule it’s really nice shot taken with some bulky camera by some marine snapper hanging out the door of another chopper, of course decent shots where very important to the US’s space mission as NASA lives and dies by the public support and this support needs to be fed with exciting pictures like this one.

By Jupiter

Pic info: launch of Jupiter Booster Feb 27th 1959
Photo credit: AP Wirephoto.

Not much to say about this photo from my collection, except that it’s a really dramatic atmospheric shot full of movement and fire. The Jupiter was a modified ballistic missile used to carry the pioneer probes to the moon amongst other things .

Jobs for the spaceboys

Picture Info: “What do you do? The Astronaut” By Michael Pollard Drawings by Peter Kesteven photos NASA MacMillan press 1972
Thank marx for the socialistic comprehensive education system that blossomed in the Britain after the war there was role in this bright world for every child. Our purpose built schools rang to excited voices of children crying out for learning and enlightenment. Our future was planned and useful job could be found for every kid. Sorry I got a bit carried away there, sadly I think even the most addled of touchy feely, sociology graduate would have had hard job selling shoemender and astronaut as equal jobs offering the same amounts of excitement, adventure and fulfilment.

I mean god bless cobblers and builder’s labourers, we all need fitters and trawler men and if things had gone differently many of the lads at our school would have gone down the pit. But you know I think only fireman (in this impressive list) might have only been as popular choice as spaceman.
Also fancy writing a career book for less than 1000th of a percent of the human population!

Anyway I salute the world’s binmen, pipe benders, spanner boys, till operators, white line huggers and cow botherers but forgive me if I rather had joined Yuri, Alan, Alexei and Valentina Tereshkova on page 26. Check the tasty centrifuge action below!

Mystery rocket

Picture info:
Thor-able (?) launch of Dicoverer II Satellite from Vandenberg Air Force base California 13th April 1959.Source: US Air Force Photo.

My first post was a fake looking picture of space dog Danka so to maintain cold war balance here’s a weird looking American photo is it me or does it look weird like a model or a set up. It’s made more confusing as I can’t find the blast off described in the caption for Thor-able rocket I think it reality it’s Thor-Agena rocket.

Anyway it’s a nice dramatic shot. And we’ve all learnt that Spanish for Launch is “Lanzamieto”

click on the original english caption below to read the official version

Update
God Bless flickr through which "Almiy's" got in touch
and said this in repsonse to the picture above and my questioning it's correctness. I'm a bit jealous having a grandad who helped launch rockets, mine launched trawlers which is cool but rockets well that's must be better!

"It looks legit to me. Where did you find it? I happen to work at Vandenberg AFB where they launched the Thor and Agena rockets way back when during my grandfathers day when he worked there. Although the Thor was only one type of rocket launched from Space Launch Complex 2 at VAFB, this photo looks like the old SLC-2 East site (I know it well) where they still do some current rocket prep work. They now launch at SLC-2 West which is a much bigger tower to accommodate modern Delta II rockets. See a photo of the most recent launch at my Flickr site. The first ballistic missile in the US was launched from this site and the buildings remain historical landmarks still in use.Also see: www.ulalaunch.com/ or www.spaceflightnow.com/delta/d335/gallery/www.spaceflightnow.com/ "

Flying carpets to the stars

Pic info.
Cool as Fuck!
Inspiral Carpets badge 2cm diameter
Circa 1992

Song info
Saturn 5
1994
By Inspiral Carpets (Tom Hingley, Clint Boon, Graham Lambert, Craig Gill, Martyn Walsh)
Produced by Pascal Gabriel
UK chart position 18 format mp3

Time for some music, a nice obvious tune first. Most songs about space use the heavens as a metaphor for earthly matters generally affairs of the heart. But this slice of poppy organ drive baggy delight, from a close perusal of the lyrics seems to be just a celebration of the world’s biggest and most complicated flying machine. Clint Boons trade mark organ rifts rise and fall throughout the tune and the only sour note is the rather pedestrian drumming.

Saturn five has special place for me being a perennial indie club favourite, it’s the soundtrack to many a good night especially in the unlikely New York New York which is down on the left just off the Ramblas. Enjoy!
Ps: Clint and Tom and the boys had some other astral tinged tracks: Party In The Sky, Pluto man, Paper Moon.

Lady take a ride on a Zeke 64,

Jerry wants to be a rockette

That's a popular misconception,

says we haven't seen anything yet

Laying down the lifeless corpse of President 35

The lady crying by his side is

the most beautiful woman alive

Saturn 5, you really were the greatest sight

Stretching out on a summer's day

Houston, it's calling me back to her

An Eagle lands, and a planet full of people raises its hands

All hail the men who will walk up in heaven today

Monochrome TV,

all the things you ever represented to me

Take me once more, take me to heaven again

Saturn 5, you really were the greatest sight

Stretching out on a summer's day

Houston, it's calling me back to her

More band info.

Gus Grissom Space Hero.

Picture Info.
Postcard caption:
"Captain Gus Grissom USAF, shown in his space suit prior to being the second U.S astronaut launched into space"
Plastichrome postcard printed after January 1961.

Of all the Apollo and Mercury astronauts, one of my favourites has always been Virgil Ivan Grissom.

I don’t know why maybe it because Virgil was the coolest of the Thunderbird pilot (flying number 2 into danger not your work shy fop like Scott in T-Bird one showboating and getting the glory). Maybe it was his portrayal in “the Right Stuff” or maybe it’s finding out today that we share a birthday hurrah!

I won’t rehash his life story suffice to say 100 missions in Korea , chosen for Mercury Redstone -7 he was the 2nd American in space. Then came the incident with hatch door and the sinking of his capsule on splash down, the controversy that dogged him the rest of life.

Misfortune followed Gus as he was killed on the test pad of Apollo 1 with his colleagues Ed White and Roger B. Chaffee in a terrible fire caused by a number of problems: bad wiring, 100% oxygen atmosphere and a door that didn’t open from the inside!

So Gus is one of space true hero’s. It’s a nice shot too.

The fuller story here.

Proyectil Teledirigido

Picture Info.
Russian Rocket launches: press release date 15 April 1958.

Another picture from my archive I think it’s a Russian photo possibly showing the rockets used to launch Damka into orbit.

It’s a great picture I might get round to translating the caption at my Spanish class in a week or so.

Anyone more fluent please post your attempt.

Otherwise let’s just enjoy the picture.

Drawn to the Skies

Pic info:
Taken from "longacre Book of Aircraft" 1963
no author/artist listed
designed by Peter Sulivan

Picture Books:
One of the overlooked benefits enjoyed by post WWII children was the gradual improvement in the design and production of books. Today’s book shops are a riot of colour with Kids books particularly being full colour throughout. But it wasn’t long ago when books came on rough acid paper with a few pages of often black and white plates in the middle, the odd diagram in the text the only colour being a dust jacket.

Thankfully by the time me and my brothers were taken to Hanley library colour books were more mostly the norm. The MAIN reason of course to go to Hanley library was the chance if there was time to go and see the Spitfire in greenhouse across the road (aren’t the government missing a literacy trick here, forget new books put more fighters, dinosaurs and killer robots in libraries)!

The book we loaned from the library, were a particular golden age of illustration; with photography still costly and complicated children’s books were filled with wonderfully hand drawn illustrations and paintings. These where a special boon to technical books allowing exciting cutaways of space ships or the fiery separation of yet un-built rockets to be depicted.

Also freed from the realism of photography artists could use dramatic angles and inspiring perspectives to brings scenes to life. One the most appealing aspects of these books are the simple bold palettes this type of printing used. This is why this sort of commercial illustration is still sort after much like the colour magazine spreads and print advertising of the period.

I know this book is about flight in general but it has got rockets in it and I wanted to share the cool picture of the chopper carrying a speed boat, reminiscent of the scene from Apocalypse Now, Charlie don’t surf!

Sadly there’s no illustrator listed in the book and I can’t see any signatures on the painting, whoever they were they had bold clear consistent style much more interesting than prose!