Space Team Reunites For John Glenn's Friendship 7 82
Hugh Pickens writes "An era begins to pass as only about 25 percent of today's American population were at least 5 years old when John Glenn climbed into the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule on Feb. 20, 1962 and became the first American to orbit the earth. This weekend John Glenn joined the proud, surviving veterans of NASA's Project Mercury to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his historic orbital flight as Glenn and Scott Carpenter, the two surviving members of the original astronaut corps, thanked the retired Mercury workers, now in their 70s and 80s, who gathered with their spouses at the Kennedy Space Center to swap stories, pose for pictures and take a bow. 'There are a lot more bald heads and gray heads in that group than others, but those are the people who did lay the foundation,' said 90-year-old Glenn. Norm Beckel Jr., a retired engineer who also was in the blockhouse that historic morning, said almost all the workers back then were in their 20s and fresh out of college. The managers were in their 30s. 'I don't know if I'd trust a 20-year-old today.' Bob Schepp, 77, was reminded by the old launch equipment of how rudimentary everything was back then. 'I wonder how we ever managed to launch anything in space with that kind of stuff,' said Schepp. 'Everything is so digital now. But we were pioneers, and we made it all work.'"
So casual... (Score:4, Insightful)
'I don't know if I'd trust a 20-year-old today.'
Since when was ageism okay?
Too much time, too little progress (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry to set the bar high (or to remind that it's not high enough) but am I the only one that sees this as a reminder of what more could had been done during those 50 years?
Orbit the Earth, then walk on the moon, then take cars on the moon with you, then play golf on the moon, then -for some reason- abstain from going anywhere higher than low Earth orbit indefinetely?
Sure, there has been a great deal of progress in automation and exploration, but in terms of human presense in space the situation seems a bit pathetic.
Truly Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
So do I. It really is astonishing when you consider all NASA was able to accomplish in about a decade at a time a digital calculator was the size of a dictionary (or something like that, I'm not actually old enough to be the get-off-my-lawn group). Check out the documentary The NASA Missions: When We Left Earth, it really gives you an appreciation for this.
:P)
And, frankly, I can't blame Glenn for "[not trusting] a 20-year-old today" and I don't think it's age-discrimination either. Would you trust some gizmo-reliant "adult teenager" of today to put you in into LEO? NASA was using slide-rules, hard science and critical thinking. Today, some "20-year-old" will probably just take a computed message at its word without a second thought.
(it's not ageist for me to say of any of this, I'm in my 20's
Re:Truly Amazing (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because most 20 year-olds back in the fifties and early sixties were all intelligent, serious, hard-working, responsible adults.
The young engineers working at NASA worked hard to get where they were. Just like there are many 20-something engineers today who also working their ass off. The difference between now and then is that engineering and government service wasn't looked down upon as it is today. It was also a well paying profession. Those smart, motivated young people are now attracted more towards financial and web-based endeavors. Because that is where the money and opportunities are.
Re:Truly Amazing (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. The best of the best today won't have bothered to major in any engineering field most likely; instead, they'll have gone into some other major such as finance or medicine, where the pay is a lot higher and they don't have to worry about being unemployable after age 40. Back in the 60s, many of the brightest people did want to go into engineering, because it was a highly respected profession and paid very well, and had very good job security too. Nowadays, it's a totally unrespected profession, the pay is shit (it starts out OK, goes up with about 5 years experience, and then levels off), and is rife with ageism so you can't expect to make it a lifelong career. The smartest kids these days see this, and avoid the field entirely.
A lot of farm boys, too... (Score:4, Insightful)
Back then the USA had a lot more family farms, or kids whose relatives or grandparents were famers. From what I've heard, growing up on a family farm tends to make people used to hard work, independently solving problems, working with both your hands and your mind, and also often provides a familiarity with dangerous chemicals and even explosives of some sort or other (like to dynamite big rocks out of a field). Hard to compare that to what most kids these days experience growing up where they can't even get near a decent chemistry set...