Space Team Reunites For John Glenn's Friendship 7

Hugh Pickens writes "An era begins to pass as only about 25 percent of today's American population were at least 5 years old when John Glenn climbed into the Friendship 7 Mercury capsule on Feb. 20, 1962 and became the first American to orbit the earth. This weekend John Glenn joined the proud, surviving veterans of NASA's Project Mercury to celebrate the 50th anniversary of his historic orbital flight as Glenn and Scott Carpenter, the two surviving members of the original astronaut corps, thanked the retired Mercury workers, now in their 70s and 80s, who gathered with their spouses at the Kennedy Space Center to swap stories, pose for pictures and take a bow. 'There are a lot more bald heads and gray heads in that group than others, but those are the people who did lay the foundation,' said 90-year-old Glenn. Norm Beckel Jr., a retired engineer who also was in the blockhouse that historic morning, said almost all the workers back then were in their 20s and fresh out of college. The managers were in their 30s. 'I don't know if I'd trust a 20-year-old today.' Bob Schepp, 77, was reminded by the old launch equipment of how rudimentary everything was back then. 'I wonder how we ever managed to launch anything in space with that kind of stuff,' said Schepp. 'Everything is so digital now. But we were pioneers, and we made it all work.'"

Comments

So casual...

[AmiMoJo]

'I don't know if I'd trust a 20-year-old today.'

Since when was ageism okay?

Re:So casual...

[Beelzebud]

It seems to happen around 40. ;)

Re:So casual...

[UziBeatle]

"Since when was ageism okay?"

Well, I suppose it does sound that way. I'll give it my spin
from a 56 year old perspective and maybe some insight
for you.

When I graduated from a very middle class neighboorhood
High School (in the shadow of the Johnson Space Center, Clear
Lake,TX) back in 1974 I knew full well that the standards
I was being judged by were less than prior years.

I can't speak for all school districts, onlly the one I was involved with but I know many across the United States, by that time, had greatly backed off standard needed to graduate and teaching methods had changed during the 60's.

Examples. Multiple choice questions tests began
to become far more common as time went on. In the
past students had either fill in the blank or worse, ESSAY
type responces on weekly tests.
I'm sure even todays student realizes how easy multiple
choice tests are and that fill in the blank and essay
systems require more knowledge. By the time I was in
school in the 60's and 70's essay responses were
pretty much gone. It was rare for me to face them.

On English courses. In years before my experience
in public High School students were required to file
far more written essays during the year than we were.
In fact, by the time I graduated my school district
had greatly relaxed the final English requirements
and the final essay test score impact on your total
score was lowered by a significant amount.

Mathematics. In my school district the math requirements
were lowered during the 70's. By the time I graduated
one merely needed ALgebra 1 and Geometry 1 to get
a free pass to graduation. Pretty sad as prior generations, particularly early 60's era and before had MUCH more
math required under their belts prior to thinking of going
to college.

The sciences. Again, lowered requirements. Physics
was required in prior years. In my case again, one didn't need
near as much chemistry and 'real' physics was not required.
You could get by with a pretty skimpy science exposure overall.

I've got a number of books on my shelves that date to the
early part of prior century and up thru the mid 40's that
focus on the teaching of Algebra and Geometry to that
eras equivilant of grade school thru high school levels.
Trust me those books show to me that expected
standards were much higher for students earlier
in the food chain. Grade school kids were learning
mathematics that only was experienced by me
until High School in the 70's.
I recall when a High School degree actually meant something.
By the 80's it was common feeling among many I worked
with then that High School degrees by that era were
becoming more and more meaningless due to the
standards the Publik Skool Districts were using.

This isn't to say that by today there are not brilliant
20 somethings out there. We all know there are.
It is my sense, at the ancient age of 56 , that there
are far less as a percentage of the population, of solid
very knowledgeable people in the pool to pick from.

Indeed, think about it. I was amazed myself at the progress
of the USA space program. I knew it was powered by
German science as that was no secret. I knew
that we had a miserable space program at the start of the 60's and were actually incapable of lifting jack squat into
space without rockets blowing up right and left.
Mercury, Gemini , Apollo and the landing men on the fraking
moon on July 20, 1969 all occurred in a mere damn 9 years.

That sir, was a miracle compared to today. I don't think
it could be reproduced.

So, yah, though it hurts to admit it. I agree, that that generation
of 20 to 30 year olds were far more potent than the generation
I came from in the sense they

Re:So casual...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

I can't speak for all school districts, onlly the one I was involved with but I know many across the United States, by that time, had greatly backed off standard needed to graduate and teaching methods had changed during the 60's.

a free pass to graduation. Pretty sad as prior generations, particularly early 60's era and before had MUCH more

that we had a miserable space program at the start of the 60's and were actually incapable of lifting jack squat into

I'm afraid you'll have to resubmit your batch. The lines quoted didn't fit the punch cards.

I wonder what it's like at SpaceX

[ColdWetDog]

And the other 'private' space companies.

Seems like it's the 1960's all over again. Small groups of engineers trying to do something cool. Maybe that's what we need to bootstrap things up again. Of course, they're essentially trying to do the same thing as NASA was trying to do in the 1960's minus the unknown factor.

But I bet it's fun to work in an environment where you have a small group of intelligent people.

(Sighs and and tries to focus enough on federal compliance regulations long enough to get ready for tomorrow's administration meeting.)

Godspeed!

[stox]

I can only hope we can revigorate ourselves to reach even further in the years ahead of us.

As for the 20 year old quip, the young are not burdened with what the older think is impossible. Conversely, the older have learned that
it is probably not a good idea to juggle bottles of nitro glycerin. Though, sometimes, we will stand back a ways and watch the youngin try. ;->
Sometimes, we're surprised!

Too much time, too little progress

[arisvega]

Sorry to set the bar high (or to remind that it's not high enough) but am I the only one that sees this as a reminder of what more could had been done during those 50 years?

Orbit the Earth, then walk on the moon, then take cars on the moon with you, then play golf on the moon, then -for some reason- abstain from going anywhere higher than low Earth orbit indefinetely?

Sure, there has been a great deal of progress in automation and exploration, but in terms of human presense in space the situation seems a bit pathetic.

Truly Amazing

[epp_b]

'I wonder how we ever managed to launch anything in space with that kind of stuff,'

So do I. It really is astonishing when you consider all NASA was able to accomplish in about a decade at a time a digital calculator was the size of a dictionary (or something like that, I'm not actually old enough to be the get-off-my-lawn group). Check out the documentary The NASA Missions: When We Left Earth, it really gives you an appreciation for this.

And, frankly, I can't blame Glenn for "[not trusting] a 20-year-old today" and I don't think it's age-discrimination either. Would you trust some gizmo-reliant "adult teenager" of today to put you in into LEO? NASA was using slide-rules, hard science and critical thinking. Today, some "20-year-old" will probably just take a computed message at its word without a second thought.

(it's not ageist for me to say of any of this, I'm in my 20's :P)

Re:Truly Amazing

[captjc]

Yes, because most 20 year-olds back in the fifties and early sixties were all intelligent, serious, hard-working, responsible adults.

The young engineers working at NASA worked hard to get where they were. Just like there are many 20-something engineers today who also working their ass off. The difference between now and then is that engineering and government service wasn't looked down upon as it is today. It was also a well paying profession. Those smart, motivated young people are now attracted more towards financial and web-based endeavors. Because that is where the money and opportunities are.

Re:Truly Amazing

[Grishnakh]

Wrong. The best of the best today won't have bothered to major in any engineering field most likely; instead, they'll have gone into some other major such as finance or medicine, where the pay is a lot higher and they don't have to worry about being unemployable after age 40. Back in the 60s, many of the brightest people did want to go into engineering, because it was a highly respected profession and paid very well, and had very good job security too. Nowadays, it's a totally unrespected profession, the pay is shit (it starts out OK, goes up with about 5 years experience, and then levels off), and is rife with ageism so you can't expect to make it a lifelong career. The smartest kids these days see this, and avoid the field entirely.

Who knew better?

[darkonc]

There were about 120 former V2 technicians from Germany and a small handful of American pioneers, and anybody else who had formally studied rocketry was a young'un. Pretty much nobody under 30 who was good enough was likely to bet the remainder of his career on as experimental a process as rocketry -- and until shortly before Glen got his first flight, sending people into space was considered woo-woo. --

Up until 1958, the US military was formally forbidden to put a rocket into space. Not quite the career path for an engineer who was married with children.

Then the soviets put Sputnik onto space in the fall of 57, and the gloves came off. That would have been when NASA went to all of the colleges and hunted down the brightest young minds to do the real work of the space program. There were still a few 'old fogies' in the upper echelons, but the bulk of the crew was green under the collar.

First man in space

[nbauman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Gagarin

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/yuri-gagarin-the-man-who-fell-to-earth-2257505.html

Best thing that ever happened to American science education.

didn't blame others for delays

[k6mfw]

An interesting comment on yahoo article by 7againstThebes, "When he didn't launch the first time...or the second...or the third...etc., he didn't blame politicians, he didn't blame the NASA staff, he didn't blame his fellow astronauts. He's a real pro in every sense of the word. Kids, watch him and learn."

Most are too young to remember, and many old timers have forgot, it was scrub after scrub after scrub after scrub after scrub... till they ***finally*** got that can off the ground. Getting off the ground is hard, really hard, and it ain't cheap.

A lot of farm boys, too...

[Paul Fernhout]

Back then the USA had a lot more family farms, or kids whose relatives or grandparents were famers. From what I've heard, growing up on a family farm tends to make people used to hard work, independently solving problems, working with both your hands and your mind, and also often provides a familiarity with dangerous chemicals and even explosives of some sort or other (like to dynamite big rocks out of a field). Hard to compare that to what most kids these days experience growing up where they can't even get near a decent chemistry set...