Who is/was you favorite Astronaut?

[Rocket Doctor]

Who is/was your favorite Astronaut?

For me, it's John Glenn and John Young, both have impressed me with their talents and contirbutions to the space program over the years.

Who is yours and why?

[jflis]

Now that's a tough one.

Alan Shepard is up there (first in space, NH native)
Gene Cernan (actually got to do an interview with him once)
Walt Cunningham (One of the astronaut I got to meet. Impressed with his down home attitude and approach to life.

More recently, Winston Scott - Another whom I got to meet with for a while and enjoyed the time.

[mperdue]

Virgil Ivan Grissom

[JoeLaunchman]

Virgil "Gus" Grissom. The first man to fly in space twice and the first man scheduled for a third flight into space. He was so private he built a house with no front windows. Grissom certainly would've been a moonwalker had he lived.

[dwmzmm]

James Lovell; got to meet him once and have two autographs of his.
Also have autographs from Ed Mitchell and Walt Cunningham.

[tbzep]

Impossible to really say just going by movies like The Right Stuff, and an article here and there. Toughness, sense of humor, etc. It's been a long time since I've seen the movie or done any reading about the astronauts. They were all tough, so that isn't an issue.

Shepard, Grissom, Young, Schirra. I probably wouldn't have picked Schirra, but I read his book, Schirra's Space.

Shepard-first to play a sport on the moon
Grissom-named his Gemini ship the Unsinkable Molly Brown just to annoy his detractors
Young-snuck a real corn beef sandwich on board, only person to fly three generations of spacecraft, had a blast on the moon
Schirra-for ever antic he wrote about in his book

[brianc]

Too tough to pick one, so-

Pioneers - Laika
Mercury era- Wally Schirra
Gemini/Apollo era - Buzz Aldrin
Shuttle era - Story Musgrave http://www.storymusgrave.com/

Modern era -Mike Melvill / Brian Binnie

[Rocket Doctor]

I met Bill Pailes, he was on a DOD mission and worked in the Pentagon last time I knew.


I also had the opportunity to meet Brian Binnie, it was the end of April of 2006, he was at the Lincoln Park Airport in New Jersey.

Buzz Aldrin was from Montclaire NJ, my former home state, there is a plaque in the front of his house, but, Buzz said it reminded him of a grave marker.

[Hillbilly]

That is an easy answer for me. It is Bill Anders. My father and Bill were both Naval Academy class of 1955. Then had the same primary flight instructor in the Air Force.(You could change services in pre Air Force Academy days.)Their jobs crossed again in the early 60's. Dad just got a masters in BioAstro Engineering and was working with the NASA doctors on the Gemini program. Dad said the camera used to take the famous earth rise photo Bill would carry around to the kids ball games,backyard bar-b-q 's ,ect. just to get practice with it. Dad moved on to other jobs in the Air Force and retired in 74.
I never thought it was a big deal when I was a kid and we would get Christmas cards from an astronaut every year,but now I know better.

[GuyNoir]

For me, it's a good friend of mine. Jay Apt. :D

[ghrocketman]

1) Buzz Aldrin
2) John Glenn
3) Mike Bloomfield (from my home town of Fenton, Mi)

[Mark II]

...
Young-snuck a real corn beef sandwich on board, only person to fly three generations of spacecraft, had a blast on the moon...John Young deserves all the accolades he gets (and then some) but...

Walter Marty Schirra, Jr.: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schirra)

Sigma7 (MA-8) - 10/03/1962 (6 orbits)
Gemini 6A (with Tom Stafford) - 12/16/1965 - 12/17/1965 (16 orbits)
Apollo 7 (with Walt Cunningham and Don Eisele) - 10/11/1968 - 10/22/1968 (163 orbits)

First person to fly in space three times.

MarkII

[Mark II]

1) Buzz Aldrin
2) John Glenn
3) Mike Bloomfield (from my home town of Fenton, Mi)
Roger Chaffee was from Grand Rapids, MI. My family moved to GR two months after the Apollo 1 fire. I remember all of the local tributes to Roger Chaffee from that time.

Jack Lousma is also from Grand Rapids.

Michael Anderson (of Columbia - STS-107) was born in Plattsburgh, NY.

I really have no particular favorites among the astronauts, although I am familiar with the careers of some more than others. Among astronauts, I include Mike Melville and Brian Binney, and the X-15 pilots who flew into space. They are all heroes to me.

MarkII

[marslndr]

Interesting that no one has said Neil Armstrong.

For me it would be "Gus". He got a bad rap in the movie "The Right Stuff".

The Gemini was nicknamed the Gus Mobile because he had so much to do with it's design.

[Bob Kaplow]

Hard question. I've totally lost count of how many astronauts I've actually met. When I tried to come up with a list it was close to 2 dozen.

The first astronaut I ever actually met was Karl Henize. My dad knew him from his days at NU & Adler. he built the telescopes used in the Apollo program. My dad got his autograph on my Space Exploration merit badge booklet the night before he was officially announced as an astronaut in 1967. He didn't get to fly until 1985 on STS-51F, becoming the oldest rookie astronaut. He died in 1993 climbing Mt Everest.

The first veteran astronaut I met was Deke Slayton, and had him autograph my scale model Conestoga-1 in 1984. Also present that day, at a "Right Stuff" panel were Yeager, Cooper, McDivitt, Cernan, & Aldrin.

[mperdue]

The Gemini was nicknamed the Gus Mobile because he had so much to do with it's design.
While Gus contributed a lot to the design of the Gemini I think the nickname was due more to the fact that, as the smallest astronaut, he was the only one to fit comfortably in it. :)

Mario

[tquigg]

I've had the good fortune to meet a few astronauts (I collect autographed copies of books) but my favorite is one that I've never met yet...John Young. There are a lot of "colorful" stories out there about him, some from people I know who have worked with him.

[Royatl]

1) Buzz Aldrin.
2) John Glenn.
3) Story Musgrave.

[jadebox]

I've had the good fortune to meet a few astronauts (I collect autographed copies of books) but my favorite is one that I've never met yet...John Young. There are a lot of "colorful" stories out there about him, some from people I know who have worked with him.

John Young is fun to meet in person. Though he is generally soft-spoken and won't sign autographs, he is friendly and very funny. He has a dry sense of humor. He'll say something and it'll take you a minute to realize what he said was very funny.

Reading books by shuttle astronauts, you'll get conflicting views of John Young. Mike Mullane's book, Riding Rockets, portrays him as almost a monster. But, you get a much different description of him in Tom Jones's Skywalking. (I highly recommend both of those books).

BTW, John Young is from Orlando. So, those of us here don't appreciate people saying bad things about him. To us, he is a hero. And a parkway. He's a hero and a parkway.

Back to the original question, I'm not sure who I'd say is my favorite astronaut. I'm overwhelmingly impressed by all of them. And, having had the pleasure of meeting a few of them, my opinion is colored by those brief encounters.

Kennedy Space Center has a "Lunch with an Astronaut" and astronaut greetings every day. My wife and I have annual passes to KSC, so I check the schedule online and head out there whenever an astronaut of interest to me is there. We've also attended some other events where we've had the chance to meet astronauts.

My first favorite encounter was with Walt Cunningham. He's the most public of the Apollo astronauts. He was also the first Apollo astronaut I met in person. Of course, I was tongue-tied and managed just a few grunts before getting him to sign his book for me.

Charlie Duke hosted the "Lunch with an Astronaut" shortly after that. I was so excited, I couldn't eat the lunch. After his presentation during the lunch, he posed for photos and signed things (something the astronauts don't usually do right after the lunch). He was very friendly. I had read a book just before that (Andrew Chaikin's A Man on the Moon I think) which had described an astronaut cleaning moondust from under his fingernails after returning to the Command Module. That's was what I was thinking when I shook Charlie Duke's hand - he once had moondust under his fingernails.

I've talked with "Hoot" Gibson a couple of times. He's is very friendly and out-going. The first time, I told him that my father was in the Air Force at Eglin AFB when the Columbia made its first trip on top of the 747 to KSC. One of my dad's responsibilities was security on the flight line. He was supposed to keep people away from the shuttle. So, of course, he arranged for my brother and I to get a tour. We went inside the 747 and even got to climb a ladder to peek out a hatch and see the orbiter's bottom just a few feet above us. As I was telling Hoot about how excited I was to be that close to the orbiter, I realized I was talking to someone who had flown inside it. I apologized to him, but he was very considerate and said he understood my excitement.

Story Musgrave is always a pleasure to meet. He lives in the area so he is at KSC often. At every event, he makes sure to greet as many of the people who are in attendance as he can.

A couple weeks ago, we took my step-daughter, son-in-law, and grandson to KSC. We "had lunch" with astronaut Susan Still-Kilrain. As a former test pilot and one of only three female shuttle pilots, her story is interesting. The magical moment for us, though, came after lunch when she posed for photographs. Riley, my two-year old ("I will be three in September") grandson, attired in his own astronaut flight suit, gave her a kiss on the cheek. We discovered later that Susan Still is one of the astronauts that appears in Riley's favorite DVD, "The Big Space Shuttle."

My most recent memorable encounter was also a couple of weeks ago. We met Buzz Aldrin. A year ago, we also met him and he'd agreed to my request to take a photo with him. Just as the photo was about to be taken, someone said "We need you" and dragged Dr. Aldrin away. This year, however, I actually got to sit down and talk with him for a few minutes. Of course, all I could manage to say were things like "You're Buzz Aldrin." I think he already knew that. But, I did get my photograph. My wife, however, sat down and talked with him for about 15 minutes.

Back again to the question of which astronaut is my favorite ... that's hard to say .... but Pete Conrad is a candidate just for being Pete Conrad - always taking his job very seriously and having fun at the same time.

-- Roger

[sandman]

Neil Armstrong.

Unassuming, claims he's not a hero, "I was just doing a job." Will NOT sign autographs 'cause peole sell 'em on Ebay.

Next probably James Lovell.

Least favorite, Buzz Aldrin.

[jadebox]

Unassuming, claims he's not a hero, "I was just doing a job." Will NOT sign autographs 'cause peole sell 'em on Ebay.


He has been not signing since long before eBay came around. :-)

I think, in his case, it is because, as you said, he doesn't consider himself a hero and he doesn't think it's appropriate for him to act like a celebrity.

John Young has specifically said he doesn't sign autographs because of someone selling them.

One other astronaut, I can't recall who, tells the story of receiving a request for forty autographed photos from someone claiming to be a teacher wanting the photos for his class. The photos ended up on eBay and that astronaut doesn't sign any more.

Many astronauts don't sign autographs in public because it takes too much time and they don't want to disappoint anyone who might not get an autograph. A few don't sign in public because they, like sports stars, either have contracts only to sign for certain companies or events or because they sell autographs through personal appearances or their web sites.

-- Roger

[ghrocketman]

If it would have been the top FOUR, Neil Armstrong would have been my 4th.
If he was just a LITTLE more open and public in his persona he could easily be #1 on my list.
He may not think he is a hero and was just doing his job, but he DEFINES what I think of as a hero; for crying out loud, he was the first living being on the MOON. As far as I'm concerned he is one of few names that deserves "hero" status.
Other names in my book include Yeager, Shepard, Glenn, Grissom, Aldrin, Tibbets, Olds (Robin, not Ransom E) , Einstein, Oppenheimer, Ford, and Sloan to name a few of the 20+ people I consider to be true heroes.
Not a one of them is any sort of a professional athlete either.

"Lieutenant" hero status goes to all those brave souls lost in Apollo 1, Challenger, and
Columbia.

Not sure why someone would list Buzz as "least" favorite. He does seem to be the most jovial and joking as well as public among those that went to the moon. I'm pretty sure he has been able to capitalize monetarily on his status as well, and for that I say GOOD FOR HIM, and MORE POWER TO HIM. Some may frown on that, but I have zero idea why.

[GregGleason]

I had to give this some thought, since there are so many. But here is mine ...

Rick D. Husband (STS 107).

Greg

[GuyNoir]

I've talked with "Hoot" Gibson a couple of times.

At the 1980 World Spacemodeling Championships in Lakehurst, NJ, NAR President Pat Miller came up to me, and said "I've got a last minute job for you. NASA's sending an astronaut here, and I need someone to shepard him around."

It was "Hoot".

When I asked him how he got to be an astronaut, he replied, "Well, I joined the Navy to learn how to fly. After I did that, I was looking for something different to do, so I applied and became a test pilot. After I did that for a while, I was looking around for something bigger and faster to fly and this (Space Shuttle) seemed to be it."

Hoot went on to become Jay Apt's STS-47 commander, a launch that took place the day before the 1982 World Spacemodeling Championships in Melbourne, FL.

Our paths crossed again at the 2002 NCAE educator conference, where I asked him (in a huge public meeting) whether it was true that John Young hand flew the STS-1 re-entry. He didn't respond to that, but said since the flight software could possibly fail, yes indeed, they practice hand flying re-entry in the simulator.

Too much fun. . . .

[tbzep]

Our paths crossed again at the 2002 NCAE educator conference, where I asked him (in a huge public meeting) whether it was true that John Young hand flew the STS-1 re-entry. He didn't respond to that, but said since the flight software could possibly fail, yes indeed, they practice hand flying re-entry in the simulator.


Do you think his lack of a response was intended to be read between the lines as a "yes"?

[jadebox]

The first time I got to speak with "Hoot" Gibson his wife, Rhea Seddon (also a shuttle astronaut), was there. This was just after Mike Mullane's book had been published. I remarked that both of them were presented favorably in Mullane's book - not everyone was. Dr. Seddon remarked that she was pleased that Mullane labeled her as one of the "hotties" among the female astronauts. (As an aside, she still is, IMHO.) :-)

Hoot told how he played a "gotcha" once on Mike Mullane. Hoot is a pilot for Southwest Airlines. Mike Mullane was a passanger on one of his flights. After everyne boarded, Hoot made an announcement telling everyone that they had an astronaut on board. He described Mullane as a real American hero and, of course, mentioned which seat Mullane was sitting in. So, all through the flight, Mullane had people coming up to meet him and ask for autographs. Most probably didn't realize that their pilot was also an astronaut.

-- Roger