Board Ranks

[ASSNE Prime]

lets appoint a committee

[Galactus]

lets appoint a committee

I'm On it!!!!

[Rotorhead]

Well, it better not interfere with any of our fun at meetings....

[Galactus]

Well, it better not interfere with any of our fun at meetings....

Bob has volunteered for oversight on our Committee! Way to go, Bob!

[Paul D]

I votr for MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE... LOL...

[mrgizmo65]

That sounds good to me Paul. Kinda reminds me when Bob and I were kids, the old buck rogers movies from the 30's . The lead bad-ass was a guy titled Ming the Mercyless.

[Galactus]

I used to watch that! "Ming the Merciless" was from the show "Flash Gordon!"
It may be corny, but:

We are all, in a way, Flash Gordon, Captain James T. Kirk, Colonel Jack O'Neill, Capt. Samantha Carter, Frank Poole, David Bowman, Chuck Yeager, Yuri Gagarin, Alan Shepard, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Wally Schirra, Deke Slayton, Scott Carpenter, Ed White, Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, Christa McAuliffe, Dick Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Judith A. Resnik, Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka, Gregory B. Jarvis, Rick Husband, Willie McCool, Michael Anderson, David Brown, Kalpana Chawla, Laurel Clark, Ilan Ramon, Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong because they are heroes of the "Space Age," fictional and real and the best part of us. Us, the people who love space, science, exploration, adventure and the awe, glory and love of astronomy.

Can you tell me who all of these people are and what shows, books or films they are characters in or who the real people are and why they are significant and why we should remember them?

[Rotorhead]

When I first arrived at flight school, I met an astronaut who lived aboard the base in Pensacola. His name was Baker. Remember him?

[Galactus]

Space Nut that I am, of course, but first, I named several fictional space cadets(what shows/movies/books are they from, folks?) and then the first man in space, Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the Original Mercury Seven Astronauts, Chuck Yeager, who broke the sound barrier, The Apollo 1 crew lost in a fire, the Challenger Crew, lost on launch, and the Columbia Crew, lost on re-entry, and the first crew to go to the moon, land and return.

Now about Astronaut Baker... I really didn't remember at first and--knowing you, Bob, and reading the coy phrasing about how you knew him--began to run through my head all of the names of the animals who went into space before men & women ("...no, that was Ham"), and I remembered Able and then Baker and looked him up...



Bob's Old Pal "Baker" rode a Jupiter IRBM into space in 1959.

Monkeys Able and Baker became the first monkeys to survive spaceflight after their 1959 flight. On May 28, 1959, aboard Jupiter IRBM AM-18, were a 7-pound (3.18 kg) American-born rhesus monkey, Able, and an 11 ounce (310 g) squirrel monkey from Peru, Baker. The monkeys rode in the nose cone of the missile to an altitude of 360 miles (579 km) and a distance of 1,700 miles (2,735 km) down the Atlantic Missile Range from Cape Canaveral, Florida. They withstood forces 38 times the normal pull of gravity and were weightless for about 9 minutes. A top speed of 10,000 mph (16,000 km/h) was reached during their 16 minute flight. The monkeys survived the flight in good condition. Able died four days after the flight from a reaction to anesthesia, while undergoing surgery to remove an infected medical electrode. Baker lived until November 29, 1984, at the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.--information and photo Courtesy of Wikipedia.

[Rotorhead]

That's him!!

[mrgizmo65]

George, that c***P about Charlie breaking the sound barrier is not true. To set the record straight, there was a pilot that flew the day before sort of like a rehersal, and he did it. After his flight , he was told to be quiet and let the 'STAR"of the show take the win. More info on charlie, he is not very popular at eaa after a few comments he made about the late Scott Crossfield, Paul Poberensky asked charlie to leave and never return. Charlie did one other cute thing, he tried to bill paul for having the words Glamorous Glennis on the side of his personal P51 mustang. Poberensky immediatly had it removed. Glennis was charley's wife"s name. Paul Poberensky is one of the founders of the EAA.

[Galactus]

Jerry, was Chuck Yeager's name all you took away from what I wrote?

The breaking of the sound barrier is, I believe, merely a step along the way in the history of the space program. There is so much more in what I wrote to educate and inspire. So much to at least show respect...why tear it down?

I have heard these stories about Yeager's acheivement for years and have taken them with a grain of salt. That is all they are: stories. Your familiar use of General Yeager's name suggests you knew or know him or was just disrespectful. Did you know him and not like him? Or like many who love to tell stories (including me), have you taken this story to your heart as reality?

While I agree that General Yeager has always been a self-promoter, especially since Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" came out as a popular book, then movie and apparently, General Yeager's penchant for self-promotion has gotten him in dutch with aviators and others who see this as an attribute in conflict with the "Right Stuff." Yeager was disliked by many. Jealousy? Maybe, but all evidence leads me to believe he was a rough and tumble guy who might rub others the wrong way.

But all historical evidence technically disagrees with you, yet shows that part of your story may be partly based in roughly remembered fact. A little research, leads me to this well-written explanations of folks who claimed breaking the sound barrier before Gen. Chuck Yeager:

There are two other flights that don't count, both accomplished by George Welch, a civilian test pilot for North American Aviation. On October 1, 1947, just 13 days before Yeager broke the sound barrier in the X-1, Welch took the new XP-86 fighter prototype up for its maiden flight. In a powered dive from 35,000 feet, Welch reported Mach jump on his airspeed indicator, showing that he was traveling supersonic. Anecdotal stories say that a sonic boom was heard on the ground. Welch's airspeed was not being officially recorded, and no official record states that he broke the sound barrier. If he did, it was either unverified or classified. Welch believed that he did, and to hammer the point home, he gave a repeat performance. While Yeager was strapped into the X-1 still attached to its B-50 mother ship, just before the historic flight, Welch again put his XP-86 into a steep dive. Some stories say that he buzzed the B-50 close enough for those onboard, Yeager included, to hear his sonic boom. He made a 4g pullout from his dive, and those same stories say that his sonic boom was louder than Yeager's just 20 minutes later.

There is no engineering reason to doubt Welch's claim. The history books credit George Welch with breaking the sound barrier in the XP-86 in a dive six months later on April 26, 1948, with official measurements and a proper Mach indicator on board. Did he do the same thing before Yeager's flight? He may well have, and a lot of people say he did. But there's a significant difference between Yeager's flight and those of Welch, Mutke, Dittmar, and probably others. Their claims to the sound barrier were all in dives, and were transient at best. Glamorous Glennis, on the other hand, was the first aircraft capable of sustained supersonic level flight. Sure, being the first to break the sound barrier becomes less glitzy when you have to pile on qualifications. But every aviation milestone has been an incremental one; few are truly revolutionary. Yeager, Welch, Mutke, and Dittmar all made real contributions to the science of aviation. All had "the right stuff". At some point, any lines you draw to separate their achievements come down to semantics; yet you still have to draw those lines somewhere. Flights have to be official, they have to be verifiable, and they should demonstrate a deliberate capability. And so, while it's a virtual certainty that the sound barrier was broken by someone somewhere in some circumstance, Chuck Yeager's flight of the Bell X-1 is the only flight to meet all the criteria of a true aviation first.

--information provided by Skeptoid.com

[mrgizmo65]

George please excuse me for having a negative attitude.It was something that is my own personal opinion and I should of left it alone.

[Galactus]

George please excuse me for having a negative attitude.It was something that is my own personal opinion and I should of left it alone.

That's silly. i respect your opinion and was just surprised that you reacted so strongly. I wondered if Yeager once hurt you or someone you cared about. My research showed that your story was partly right, I'm glad, but I only mentioned his name once and the other folks I mentioned deserved more attention and I hoped to generate more positive talk about the space program. I'm just sorry if I brought up a sore subject. I now want to hear more about how Bob met "Baker"! Bet You didn't expect me to come up with a picture of Baker!

[Rotorhead]

George, don't ever invite me to tell a story...

BTW, Chuck Yeager was a bit arrogant in his career, but by all accounts he was a very good pilot, and acquitted himself well in combat. But he was opinionated, and famously disdained the Mercury astronauts as 'Spam in a Can'.

George, I'm not at all surprised that you came up with a photo of Baker... The story is fairly simple: In 1968, while I was attending ground school awaiting a flight slot in a training squadron, I was volunteered to be experimented upon at the Naval Aerospace Medical Institute, then housed in an old hospital at Pensacola. I spent the whole day doing vertigo testing, sitting inside a large sphere in the total dark while they spun me around in every way that they could think of. During lunch break, I wandered into a room labeled 'Baker' and found the little guy (or gal, I have no idea) in a palatial cage with another of his kind, and all sorts of photos showing him being trained, as well as during the original flight. He was still pretty lively. The thought crossed my mind that it must have been Baker's day off, and that is why they needed me to be a test subject...

[Galactus]

Thanks for your faith, Bob, but I was surprised that I found the picture! I remembered, as I said, Able, and realized that they must have traveled together. By doing a search for both, I was pleasantly surprised to find Baker's photo, which I realized made sense, upon learning that Able died shortly after their flight, But Bob, I enjoyed your story, which put you smack dab in the middle of early astronaut/aviator human testing history...and along the way, becoming involved with Space Age celebrity!

[ASSNE Prime]

Bob M wrote:

The thought crossed my mind that it must have been Baker's day off, and that is why they needed me to be a test subject...

now THAT"S a good one! LOL

[mrgizmo65]

George, without going too far, Gen. Yeager stepped on many toes and "pulled" a lot of "strings" on his way to the top. Actions he initiated , had repercussions on family members. To put it bluntly he is in no way a team player. I consider this issue closed and won't discuss it again.

[James T Kirk]

George, without going too far, Gen. Yeager stepped on many toes and "pulled" a lot of "strings" on his way to the top. Actions he initiated , had repercussions on family members. To put it bluntly he is in no way a team player. I consider this issue closed and won't discuss it again.

Jerry you seem to be taking this personally.
Were you in line to fly that plane ?
Gen. George Patton once said "We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way."

In order to get to the top you have to push people out of the way and step on some toes to get yourself recognized...period.

[mrgizmo65]

Vmonte, nice to hear from you. with regards to my post , yes it is personal,and it caused many heartaches in my family and if you don't mind I respectfully would like to drop the matter please. Like all of us there are some matters like this is one you just want to forget. I have no ill feeling for the man and as you said you do have to do things to get to the top. I hope to see you in two weeks at umd April 30.