 Panzerfaust  | 16 Jul 2009 11:17 p.m. PST |
Mine is Pete Conrad because he had a sense of humor. I liked the guy even more after reading The Right Stuff wherein an anecdote is told of his days competing to be one of the Mercury seven. He was supposed to submit a stool sample but couldn't. He finally produced one miserable bolus. To dress it up a bit he tied a ribbon around it and presented it to the nurse. Needless to say she was not amused. As Tom Wolf put it, he laughed his way out of the space program. Later he was the commander of Apollo 12 where he brought his lunar lander down hard, fully testing the craft's landing suspension shock absorbers. Keep in mind that he was a carrier pilot so I guess it goes with the territory. He did hit his target however, landing close enough to one of the early unmanned space probes to walk over to it. and from Wikipedia: "Conrad's last mission was commander of Skylab 2, the first crew aboard the space station. This crew had to repair damage caused by a mishap on launch of the station. On a spacewalk, Conrad managed to pull free the stuck solar panel by sheer brute force, which saved the rest of the mission, an action of which he was particularly proud." |
| Whatisitgood4atwork | 17 Jul 2009 1:24 a.m. PST |
They are all remarkable men, but I always think of Michael Collins. The 'other guy' in 'Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and the other guy'. |
| Rich Trevino | 17 Jul 2009 2:19 a.m. PST |
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| SpaceCudet | 17 Jul 2009 3:00 a.m. PST |
Ivan Ivanovich – a bit of a dummy but worked well with dogs. |
| RavenscraftCybernetics | 17 Jul 2009 4:59 a.m. PST |
Laika. She gave her life for progress =( |
| Patrick R | 17 Jul 2009 5:18 a.m. PST |
Dirk Frimout link He looks like he escaped from a Jules Verne story or what if Auguste Piccard had gone into space. |
 John the OFM | 17 Jul 2009 6:35 a.m. PST |
Gus Grissom. He was my favorite from the beginning, but I can't remember why. |
| hurcheon | 17 Jul 2009 7:11 a.m. PST |
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| Dremel Man | 17 Jul 2009 7:51 a.m. PST |
Dave from 2001 a Space Odyssey.
that man had moxie! |
| lugal hdan | 17 Jul 2009 9:34 a.m. PST |
Gus Grissom, without a doubt. You must love a man who insisted on naming his Gemini capsule the "Molly Brown" (cuz she was "unsinkable" – a reference to his Mercury flight) in the face of the brass claiming that Gemini missions were not to be named. NASA lost a great man on the Apollo 1 launchpad. (It lost 3 great men, but Gus was in a class all his own IMHO.) A close runner up would be Neil Armstrong. Yes, he's the most famous, but that man was a serious bad-@ss pilot, and I suspect we may not have had a successful first landing without him. And of course I give props to Yuri Gagarin as a pioneer and all-around brave bastard. |
| Klebert L Hall | 17 Jul 2009 9:41 a.m. PST |
Another Gus Grissom fan, here.
-Kle. |
| ArchiducCharles | 17 Jul 2009 9:44 a.m. PST |
Julie Payette. Local celebrity, went to my High School. She's in space right now. |
 Editor in Chief Bill   | 17 Jul 2009 10:24 a.m. PST |
No love for Richard Garriott, the first gamer in space? |
| miscmini | 17 Jul 2009 11:01 a.m. PST |
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| lugal hdan | 17 Jul 2009 3:19 p.m. PST |
Gus Grissom didn't have secret rooms in his castle or surround himself with, for lack of a better term, a babe posse. Hmmm, come to think of it, maybe I *did* pick the wrong Astronaut…. |
| jpattern2 | 17 Jul 2009 6:48 p.m. PST |
All of them. Heroes of my childhood.
I still have my GI Joe Mercury Astronaut and capsule. |
| Daffy Doug | 18 Jul 2009 11:38 a.m. PST |
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| Old Slow Trot | 31 Jul 2009 6:33 a.m. PST |
John Glenn,Neil Armstrong,Sally Ride, "Deke" Slayton,Alan Shepard,among many. |
| Wolverine | 06 Aug 2009 1:12 p.m. PST |
Gus Grissom for me also. A fellow Hoosier. |
| Wg Cdr Luddite | 06 Aug 2009 7:57 p.m. PST |
Dan Dare. Beat them all to it… |
| Steve Holmes 11 | 21 Sep 2009 4:32 a.m. PST |
No votes for Kirk – he rules – look at all the alien booty he got… |
