Mitchell Holman wrote in
:

Jess Lurkin wrote in :

Mitchell Holman wrote in
:

Savageduck wrote in

ic. com:

Mitchell Holman wrote:
PVK wrote in
:

Bearing in mind what was riding on those things, both literally
and figuratively, the quality control and scrutiny must have been
laborious. It's not as if they could take them for a test flight
and correct any bugs afterwards.

Thanks for the pics, Mitch

Regards
Paul
Cambridge U.K.



Considering the disasterous first US
attempts at putting a satellite in orbit
the later launch vehicles (Redstone, Atlas,
Saturn and now Delta) have worked amazingly
well.

I remember the old joke concerning the Vanguard: they are going to
rename it "Civil Service" because they can't fire it, and they can't
get it to work.




As John Glenn said when he was asked his thoughts
awaiting blast off "I am sitting on top of millions
of dollars worth of hardware all built by the lowest
bidder".


*Not* Glenn...

I'm too lazy to research it at the moment - but t'was not Glenn.
Glenn was too much of a hairshirt to say that.



Coulda been Shepard.


Ahhh, yes. My hero. NOT a "pilot" - an AVIATOR!
He's my hero for sticking with it so long - for the Moon!

"It's a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize
that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder
on a government contract." - Alan Shepard