[extropy-chat] Alan Shepard No. 1 USA

[David Lubkin]

At 04:27 PM 2/12/2004 -0800, Avatar Polymorph wrote:

>"In space" means "in space". Orbital and sub-orbital are irrlevant to this
>particular issue, just as whether you escape from Earth's gravity well is
>irrelevant. You can be "first out of the gravity well" but this is different
>to "first into space". Poor Alan Shepard! John Glenn is the 2nd American
>human in space - others are 3rd, 4th and so on. Well, at least Alan got to
>go to the moon, which must have been a consolation at the age of 47....

Ironically, you omitted Gus Grissom, who was the actual second American 
human in space, through his flight on Liberty Bell 7, seven months before 
John Glenn. Grissom was also commander of the first Gemini mission, on 
which he was the first human to maneuver a spacecraft. After backing up 
Gemini 6, he was chosen as the first Apollo commander, and consequently 
became one of the three astronauts to die in the Apollo 1 fire.

Besides, of course, being a test pilot, LTC Grissom had flown 100 combat 
missions in Korea.


-- David Lubkin.