Hi PT.......I'm envious. Gus Grissom huh? Closest I ever got was to shake John Glenn's hand when he came home to Ohio and his hometown, just a few miles from my own.

"We have fire in the cockpit"

Gus, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were a cross section of the first three groups of astronauts. I remember well when Liberty Bell 7 sank.......and standing in my backyard as Ed White flew overhead "walking" in space on his Gemini mission. Frank Borman said that the failure which caused the tragic fire was one of imagination. No one could imagine such a thing would happen......on the ground. But Gus knew that someday there would be losses. Just a few weeks before the fire he wrote:

"There will be risks, as there are in any experimental program, and sooner or later, we're going to run head-on into the law of averages and lose somebody. I hope this never happens, and... perhaps it never will, but if it does, I hope the American people won't think it's too high a price to pay for our space program."

Much has been made of the waste associated with the space program and how the money might have been better spent. But I tell ya' what...If you were alive in this country back then and can remember the feelings most of the nation had....... the pride, the drive, the determination.........damn......It hasn't been surpassed since,not even by 9/11. I think that's because it was a pride and a feeling based on accomplishment rather than hatred.

Just a thought. Thanks for the thread and the remembrance Peter.

Spaw