Good story from John Young (Apollo 10 and 16)

[budfox]

I've been reading "Forever Young" by astronaut John Young who is the coolest man who ever lived. Anyway, having read tons of stuff about the subject I'd never heard this story before.

Young is doing a tour after Apollo 16 returns, along with TK Mattingly and Charlie Duke. They go to the theatre with George H W Bush to see "A Funny a Thing Happened on the way to the Forum" starring Phil Silvers of Sgt. Bilko fame.

Afterwards they go back stage to meet Silvers who says to George Bush "I've got some good news and some bad news Mr President" (GW isn't president at this time but he is a congressman)".

"OK" says Bush "What's the bad news?"

Silvers replies "Well sir, the Chinese have landed on the moon"

"And the good news?" Asks Bush

"All of them sir"

Not very science related, but likely to be appreciated here.

[budfox]

I think if one can have a favourite astronaut then John Young is mine. I like Mike Collins too as nobody has a bad word to say about him in any of the books.

I'm building quite a nice library though there are quite a few books that are silly money that I want.



I've read pretty much all of those and if I had to pick a favourite it would probably be "Rocketman" Pete Conrad's book. He's another one that they all seemed to like, and clearly he was a pretty lively guy.

I do find the small snippets of information where the astronauts express opinions of each other to be fascinating. I think people imagine that they were all best mates but Borman and Aldrin certainly had little time for each other, and Al Shepherd doesn't come out too well on a few occasions.

Fascinating stuff and I'm pleased to have been born at the right time in all of human history to have witnessed the moon landings and yet still have a chance of seeing a man on mars. (I'm 51 and have vivid memories of Apollo 13 getting home and of writing a 'news report' about one of the later missions when I was a primary school).

[budfox]

Nearly finished the book now, it's been a good read. I've been trying to think if there's another person alive who I'd rather meet and I can't think of anyone.

A few of the surviving Apollo guys come close, but I cannot for the life of me imagine why someone who has walked on another world wouldn't be at the top of everyone's list.

[budfox]

speedtwelve said:

John Young always seemed to me the 'coolest' of the astronauts in an "Aw shucks, it was nothin'" kind of way. He comes across as introverted and self-deprecating, but has the most astonishing flying CV.

I was really looking forward to his book, but was disappointed on reading it. Dry and matter-of-fact to the point of being dull. No real sense of 'what it was like'. Very heavy handed with detail on spacecraft and navigation/rendezvous systems to the point of reading like an engineering textbook. I'm a professional pilot with an engineering degree and felt like I was back in the classroom rather than enjoying the story. I can only take so much description of state vectors and DSKY programming.

Mike Collins' excellent Carrying the Fire, Mullane's Riding Rockets and Gene Cernan's Last Man on the Moon were far more entertaining for me. Much more of a human element to those. Would be epic to spend an evening in a pub with them.

Carrying the Fire is excellent for sure. I've just ordered another four books in my drunken state, one of which is "All American Boys" and another is "Deke!"

So many great books to be had for just a few pounds.