wje@gummo.UUCP (06/19/83)
Does anyone know how many American astronauts that have been sent into space were test pilots? Bill Eagan groucho!wje gummo!wje
ucbesvax.turner@ucbcad.UUCP (06/21/83)
#R:gummo:-81700:ucbesvax:8700002:000:1530
ucbesvax!turner Jun 21 01:56:00 1983
On the question of how many astronauts have been test-pilots, at
on time or another, I can only say that it's probably a slimmer majority
now than before the shuttle.
I was surprised to see how many shuttlenauts are Navy officers.
Or I *was* surprised, until I remembered that the early days of the space
program were enlivened by a competition between the Air Force and the
Navy. NASA was, I think, created to resolve this tension.
When you think of how the Russians have been doing soft ground-
landings almost from the start, and how "splash-down" was SOP for the
U.S. until the shuttle, one wonders whether the Navy didn't have some-
thing to do with the American Way of Re-entry. Pomp and Circumstance
for an event of indefinite location is a little easier to arrange on a
movable surface like an aircraft carrier. Those Siberian Plump-Downs
must be rather dismal affairs by comparison.
Another interesting thing (to me): as far as I know, there has
not yet been a non-U.S. citizen put into orbit by NASA (though I've heard
that a Puerto Rican is cheduled). By contrast, the USSR has launched
astronauts from most Eastern Bloc countries, as well as one Mongolian and
one Frenchman. (-: I can't wait for the first Palestinian. Maybe Arafat
will start talking about a homeland in one of the Earth-Luna libration
points, assuming Israel doesn't get there first. :-)
Michael Turner
ucbvax!ucbesvax.turner
P.S. If a computer can make Time's "Man of the Year" cover, surely
Dr. Ride will have no trouble.