Another real problem was over putting our helmets on for re-entry, because we all had severe head colds. They couldn't come up there and make us. Houston, you have a problem!
Apollo was a big, unwieldy vehicle. I had a problem with the flight controllers over that. It would try to fare its way like an airplane.
Apollo was just too big, like flying a big transport airplane, which fighter pilots don't really revere. Gemini was just about the right size.
As a child I went to a circus. They had a man shot out of a cannon into a net. I became intrigued with what was going on.
As a Naval officer, I was trained, essentially bred, to be a military aviator. I was a Naval officer on assignment, not an employee of NASA.
At the end of our NASA careers, no one had a place for us in the military.
Dad went to Canada to learn how to fly with the Royal Canadian Air Force. He took me on my first airplane ride, where I could have a hand on the stick.
Each test pilot I know considers him, or herself, now that there are women, to be the very best. It's very demeaning to step down the ladder once in a while.
He who commands an Apollo flight will not command a second one.
I don't go along with going to Moon first to build a launch pad to go to Mars. We should go to Mars from Earth orbit. We have already been to the Moon; we've already practiced.
I don't think the space station will ever do anything for exploration. Putting people up there for a year or more is the only way you will get anywhere near the exploration concept.
I had always wanted to go to the Navy. As a young kid, I was intrigued by a Naval Officer with the beautiful brown shoes and sharp gold wings.
I have fought the centrifuge ever since. When I visited Star City in Russia, I told them, you guys don't need a centrifuge, they are a waste of time.
I played English football - soccer - instead of American football, because we couldn't afford the equipment.
I remember seeing war hero Jimmy Doolittle fly a Gee Bee racer there. He was my childhood hero. Many years later, I was lucky enough to go hunting with him.
I saw the booster, not Sputnik, flying by, and I said, maybe this is the way we should be going, not just sitting back waiting for something to happen.
I was told having a website would help me. I have yet to figure out why my life story needs to be on the web.
I've always thought space station is a great name. It should be like a gas station where we go for service and supplies before heading further out.
In Mercury, you couldn't translate. You could just change attitude. But you were actually flying it like a flying machine in Gemini.
It wasn't like in The Right Stuff movie - that was just for entertainment.
John Glenn craved the publicity. I think even John would admit that. When he went into politics, that became pretty obvious! He knew how to do public relations.
Kennedy had made a mess in Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. He had to do something to look good. The Apollo program of going to the Moon was quite a goal,.
Kids today don't want to get married. Too many of their friends have been married and divorced already. They just don't believe in it.
NASA has changed since Kennedy's day. Attitudes have changed, too. The doors have been closing rather regularly.
NASA should start thinking about this planet.
Some of the wives didn't keep up with the program. It started breaking apart during the Apollo days.
We have managed to hang in for 55 years, which isn't bad. My wife says our marriage has lasted so long because I was away half the time!
We spent a lot of time in simulators. We were going to do it right.
When a man looks across a street, sees a pretty girl, and waves at her, that's not a rendezvous, that's a passing acquaintance. When he walks across the street and nibbles on her ear, that's a rendezvous!
When a test pilot comes off a flight, there is typically another pilot who is going to take it up, and he believes in the debriefing. You don't keep something to yourself.
When people have asked if I'd like to go in the Shuttle, I said you don't get to fly it, except for landing, which I'd love to do. I wouldn't go unless I could command it.
While I was in test pilot school, I was writing a report on an airplane that just barely exceeded the speed of sound.
Within NASA, there were lots of things that were not appropriate to bring out to the public, because the press did not handle it well.
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