The Wild Rover

Pic Info: Lunar Rover Vehicle circa 1969 being tested prior to Apollo 15. Postcard posted from Kennedy Space centre Aug 1975

It could be a weak joke along the lines of Americans are so lazy they even took a car to moon, can't they walk anywhere. The justification for the lunar rover or as it was called all through my youth the "moon buggy" was to carry rock samples and to allow much longer journeys as walking in bulky space suits was extremely difficult. This picture shows the first crew to use the LRV on Apollo 15, on this mission the LRV went about 3 .5 miles and back from the Luna lander.

It's rather amusingly an early example of electric vehicle although one with un-rechargeable batteries and that only ever drove eight miles! One curious thing about the LRV is that it's tires are made of woven wire not rubber.

I always thought even though it's basically a go art that the lunar rover was kind of cool looking with reflective gold covered camera etc and chunky "land rover" wheels. Lastly I have suspicion that one of the reasons they were built is that it must have been a good laugh driving around on the moon's brittle sandy surface even at less than 10 miles a hour!

Like it always says in the car ads one careful owner and to prove it here's the hand book

For more details as always go to wiki

Another Stellar first!

Picture Info. Lt. Colonel Guion Bluford May 1982 B/W Postcard

Here’s a nice postcard of America’s first black astronaut who goes by the marvellous name of Guion "Guy" Bluford (and being American) Junior. I won’t rehash the details he suffice to say he’s made 4 shuttle flights and spent a wapping 668 hours in space. The Guion's full story is here.

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.

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!

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.