[amsat-bb] Re: Alan Who?

[B J]

--- On Wed, 5/4/11, Clint Bradford <clintbrad4d at earthlink.net> wrote:

> From: Clint Bradford <clintbrad4d at earthlink.net>
> Subject: [amsat-bb]  Alan Who?
> To: amsat-bb at amsat.org, amsat-bb at amsat.org
> Received: Wednesday, May 4, 2011, 6:00 PM
> There is a tremendous amount to learn
> right now if you are one who organizes or promotes events.
> 
> Compare what occurred on this planet on April 12, when
> thousands of parties were held covering every continent,
> school lesson plans established, and incredible, informative
> Web sites established - including a celebratory movie - for
> the celebration of Yuri Gagarin's achievements ... versus
> what is happening for the anniversary of Alan Shepard's
> flight.

<snip>

I was only 5 years old at the time and I don't remember either Shepard's or Grissom's Mercury flights.  I do recall, though, that John Glenn's mission received a lot of publicity, even here in Canada.  That might explain why mention of Freedom 7 often results in "huh?" from people.

By the way, the flight of Freedom 7 is portrayed in both the movie "The Right Stuff" and in the first episode of the HBO series "From The Earth To The Moon".  The air-ground traffic in the latter was taken from actual mission transcripts.

I also have a DVD copy of the NASA film "Freedom 7".  It runs for about half an hour, nearly twice as long as the flight itself.  I think I'll watch it tomorrow.

73s

Bernhard VA6BMJ @ DO33FL