The retirement of the space shuttle program is really making me feel old...
When I was in ninth grade in 1976, I became friends with a boy named Curtiss Redmond. He changed my interest from trains to planes.
One day, he handed me these brouchers from NASA; and told me we needed to go ahead and apply to be astronauts in new Space Shuttle program. I never did fill them out and mail them in; instead, I put them in one of my photo albums.
The Space Shuttles then made their first flights. Curtiss passed away from a stroke and complications from cancer in November 1985. His death, late nights working at Wendy's, and the words of an instructor in trade school; encouraged me to go back to college to get my Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. I graduated in 1989, and I actually interviewed for a position with NASA in their pyrotechnics group at the Johnson Space Center, south of Houston. It did not work out; I took a job with Gulf States Utilities in Beaumont instead; where I met and married Julie. Working with steam power plants changed my interest to steam power, and as they say; the rest is history.
Now the space shuttles are retired. They are now unloading a second shuttle for display at the Intrepid Air & Space Museum in New York. And someone gave me a copy of the May 2012 issue of Air & Space Magazine; in which they describe how they are dismantling the shuttles to make them safe for display, and to learn more about how hardware holds up to long term use in space.
When I was in ninth grade in 1976, I became friends with a boy named Curtiss Redmond. He changed my interest from trains to planes.
One day, he handed me these brouchers from NASA; and told me we needed to go ahead and apply to be astronauts in new Space Shuttle program. I never did fill them out and mail them in; instead, I put them in one of my photo albums.
The Space Shuttles then made their first flights. Curtiss passed away from a stroke and complications from cancer in November 1985. His death, late nights working at Wendy's, and the words of an instructor in trade school; encouraged me to go back to college to get my Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. I graduated in 1989, and I actually interviewed for a position with NASA in their pyrotechnics group at the Johnson Space Center, south of Houston. It did not work out; I took a job with Gulf States Utilities in Beaumont instead; where I met and married Julie. Working with steam power plants changed my interest to steam power, and as they say; the rest is history.
Now the space shuttles are retired. They are now unloading a second shuttle for display at the Intrepid Air & Space Museum in New York. And someone gave me a copy of the May 2012 issue of Air & Space Magazine; in which they describe how they are dismantling the shuttles to make them safe for display, and to learn more about how hardware holds up to long term use in space.