Early Space Flights
Back in the early years of space flight, some of you will recall having your regular school schedule interrupted to watch the launches.
I can remember our teacher wheeling the black and white tv into our classroom and watching John Glenn aboard Friendship 7 launch for the first orbital flight on February 20th, 1962.
We all sat there quietly. As I kid, I felt extreme confidence that the adults knew what they were doing. So, while it was quite a spectacle to watch it, I was only slightly nervous as a 3rd grader.
We were allowed to bring our transistor radios to school on those space flight days. We’d huddle around them and listen to the avuncular Walter Cronkite narrate the events of the day during recess time.
I do recall those years as a time of great optimism. There was still the afterglow of prevailing in WWII. A young, handsome President Kennedy was in the White House with his beautiful and cultured wife and their two young children. There didn’t seem to be anything America couldn't do at the time. There was also the backdrop of the Soviets’ space program and the tense Cuban Missile was to occur later that year. As young children, we didn’t have a sense of what was coming. Life seemed uncomplicated in most ways at the time. Four years later, things looked quite a bit different to me.