Bob Zimmerman remembers him.
WW II has largely passed from living memory, and now Apollo is as well. With the recent loss of Mattingly, there are fewer and fewer remaining. Borman may not have been the greatest businessman, but he was certainly a great American.
[Update a while later]
Here‘s the list of those still with us.
And out of that list of 9, only 4 moon walkers are left. Not to disparage the other 5, but to point out how long ago it has been since humans set foot on the moon. Odds are good that the next moon walkers won’t be Americans.
The next Moon walkers will be Americans. They will be followed shortly by astronauts from the ISS partner agencies – minus Russia – and various Artemis Accords signatory nations – all flying on U.S. hardware. At the rate the PRC’s economy is unraveling it may well cease to exist before putting anyone on the Moon. The first Han to set foot on Luna is likeliest to be a native-born American. Next most likely would be someone from Taiwan or Singapore.
At the rate SLS will fly astronauts to the toll booth and back, the PRC’s economy will probably have gone full cycle. Right now I remain skeptical that the PRC will be on the moon anytime soon, until I see more evidence of them working on a lander. But who knows? The PRC’s space program is largely socialist. Might not depend on economic conditions. In fact for prestige purposes it might go exactly opposite.
We also lost Karol Bobko (Wiki) back in August, at age 85.
He never flew on an Apollo mission, but he was the pilot on Challenger’s maiden flight and commander on the maiden flight of Atlantis, and was the first astronaut to fly three Shuttle missions.
So we’re not just losing the Apollo astronauts to old age, now we’re losing Shuttle astronauts to old age. That really highlights how long NASA stayed dependent on the Shuttle.
Retired Space Shuttle pilots are dying of old age before NASA has managed to fly a manned mission on the Shuttle’s replacement.
Safety remains their #1 priority.
For years, I harbored a dislike for Frank Borman for comments he made after the PSA 182 mid-air collision over San Diego in 1978. He was the head of Eastern Airlines at the time. In that accident, the airliner struck the Cessna from behind, the aviation equivalent of a semi running over a Vespa. Borman called for small planes to be banned from crowded airspace.
Well, he did do controlled flight into terrain with Eastern. Just shows that astronauts aren’t necessarily good at business. Though Bill Anders did pretty well.
So did Alan Shepard.
Little known fact: He was also one of the Derrigible crew on the cover of Led Zeppelin II.
There are actual albums floating around with his autograph.
http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/004650.html
I thought that guy looked familiar!
Now I just gotta figure out who the bearded dude in the sunglasses is. Jerry Garcia?
It was supposed to be Neil Armstrong but the graphic artist screwed-up and copied the wrong picture.
I think it was Jerry but don’t quote me.