With the entire Mercury 7 class gone for almost four years and the Gemini and Apollo groups getting thinner by the year, it IS refreshing to see another Gemini/Apollo astronaut hit the ‘#90’ milestone.

Tom Stafford, two-time Gemini and the lone surviving member of the Apollo 10 crew turned 90 years old today. He joins Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, Jim McDivitt, and Buzz Aldrin in the 90 and above club. Most all other Apollo astronauts are 85+, with Harrison Schmidt and Charlie Duke coming in around the mid 80s.

Here is a link to a NASA video saluting Stafford’s 90 years.

Link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature...e&v=-DmUZkJ9dnk

Appreciate them while they are still among us; the first humans to ever venture beyond earth orbit.

Earl

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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

I'm afraid none of the Apollo era astronauts will ever get to see us go back to the moon. I know they are saying Artemis/SLS will fly next year and we will go in 2024, but I have a feeling it won't happen until Space-X decides to do it, hopefully before the Chinese get there.

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I love sanding.

When I was born, there was no one alive that had left earth orbit. 13 1/2 years later that changed.
I fear that when I die, there will be no one alive that has left earth orbit.

Given that the Moon orbits Earth, and is well within the Earth’s Hill Sphere (gravitational influence), technically no one has as of yet left Earth orbit.

Cantankerous old astronomer

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Bill Cooke
NAR #31312
TRA #19705
SAM #0001
Huntsville, AL

My rocket blog
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I have absolutely ZERO confidence that NASA will get back to the moon anytime soon or EVER.
Space-X will get there before anyone else does.

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

The Chinese could probably beat Space-X to a round trip flight just because of the completely different approach with the Space-X Starship.

I'm in a catch 22 in a way. I want NASA to return to its former glory and represent our country. However, I kind of want SLS to fail because I hate that it was designed off Shuttle components to "save money" (fill pockets of senators/reps) while going hugely over budget and years behind schedule.

On the other side of it, I love the idea that a private company can do things faster, better, and cheaper, at least with the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. I'm hedging my bets on the big stainless Starship/BFR, but I hope it is successful and matures quickly.

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I love sanding.

Yep... NASA is a bloated bureaucracy, not the smooth engineering agency it was when it was created in the late 50's and charged with getting us to the Moon within a decade in 1961...

More interested in 'inclusion and diversity' and all this other political claptrap than actually achieving anything.

Later! OL J R: )

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

Yeah... I don't expect to see SLS last much longer... maybe make a "demo" type test flight or two, and that's it... once the expense of it comes to the attention of the media, particularly with CHEAPER ALTERNATIVES (like a dual-lauch EOR/LOR or EOR/EL2/lunar surface type mission launched by a pair of Falcon Heavies) SLS will be toast. SLS wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the old "shuttle mafia" space state senators keeping the thing alive, and for a reason to keep NASA in the launch vehicle business, and to prop up solid propellant production. SLS's main job isn't getting to the Moon or anywhere else, it's to keep the old shuttle contractors and ATK funded with fat development and production contracts. SLS is simply TOO EXPENSIVE... while shuttle was terribly expensive due to the huge "standing army" to keep it maintained and flying, at least it had a decent enough flight rate to amortize out the support costs... SLS does the exact opposite-- SLS was designed to ONLY FLY about ONCE every TWO OR THREE *YEARS*-- which means that while it has a smaller "army" of support personnel than shuttle had, it also means they build a vehicle or do their bit for the program and then basically "polish wrenches" for another 2-3 years before they have to do their bit for the program again on the next launch... meanwhile they continue to get a paycheck and all the facilities have to be maintained and kept operating-- lights on and the heat on, so to speak, and all that goes into the overhead and program costs. AND, with only ONE FLIGHT every 2-3 years, that means those operating costs ACCRUE and are all part of that ONE FLIGHT'S OVERALL COSTS... even when shuttle was flying only twice a year (post Columbia, which was 17 years ago now) the overhead costs were still AMORTIZED over those two flights, meaning each flight only took HALF the support costs per year... So, on that basis alone, SLS program/support costs will be 4-6 TIMES that of shuttle, before any yearly reductions in "the standing army" supporting SLS versus shuttle.

SLS also uses all the MOST EXPENSIVE PARTS of the shuttle, sans the orbiter of course, (meaning the RS-25 SSME's and the SRB's) that were DESIGNED to be used in "reusable mode" and uses them in "expendable mode", dropping them all to the bottom of the Atlantic on every flight. At least Saturn V's stages and engines were designed to be expendable!

Honestly the only reason SLS is still alive is because of "institutional inertia" meaning it's easier to keep a program rolling than cancel it. The glacial pace of SLS and Orion means that basically they were outdated before they even left the drawing board. SLS just isn't even on the radar in Congress but once the post-covid economic contraction takes full effect in a year or two, there's going to be a lot of belt tightening like it or not, and it's gonna be VERY hard to justify the most expensive rocket ever built that can only fly a handful of times before the shuttle hardware (SRB casings and RS-25 engines) are all expended and it needs REPLACEMENTS designed and produced to continue flying... and when there's cheaper alternatives that could be used...

AND, by that time, odds are that *something* even better by SpaceX or *maybe* Blue Origin WILL be flying, making SLS completely obsolete anyway. SpaceX is making progress on Starship, even if they're a bit 'optimistic' in their timelines, and Blue Origin is still "working behind the curtain" so even their glacial progress is still moving forward, even if at a snail's pace...

Later! OL J R : )

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The X-87B Cruise Basselope-- THE Ultimate Weapon in the arsenal of Homeland Security and only $52 million per round!

And it could do some things that nothing else could thanks to that cavernous payload bay, over and over. SLS will (maybe) only be able to loft something heavy once, which can already be done by a pair of Falcon Heavies. They can do it cheaper even if all six boosters have to be run to their limits and lost instead of returning. (or so I've read)

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I love sanding.