Abstract
“Until we joined up for this flight, I didn’t know
John Young any better than any of the others
in their group. By launch time, John and I
will know each other pretty well.”
Gus Grissom, quoted in Starfall (1974)
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- 1.
Those books of note about Grissom include Gemini, by Grissom himself (published posthumously in 1968); Seven Minus One by Carl L. Chappell (1968); Starfall, by Grissom’s widow Betty and Henry Still, (1974); Gus Grissom, Lost Astronaut by Ray E. Boomhower (2004) and Calculated Risk, The Supersonic Life and Times of Gus Grissom, by George Leopold (2016). A detailed account of Grissom’s early life is included in Liberty Bell 7, The Suborbital Mercury Flight of Vigil I. Grissom, Colin Burgess, Springer-Praxis, 2014, specifically Chapter 2, An Astronaut Named Gus pp. 55-66.
- 2.
According to Betty Grissom in Starfall (1974), Grissom’s nickname came from an acquaintance, who had read his abbreviated name ‘Gris’ upside down on a card game scorecard and mistakenly thought it read ‘Gus’. The name stuck.
- 3.
The G.I Bill, also known as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of June 22, 1944, was a law which provided for WWII veterans and featured a range of benefits, including funds for tuition and living expenses to attend higher education.
- 4.
On July 20, 1999, thirty years after Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and almost 38 years to the day after it sank, Grissom’s capsule was finally pulled from the ocean bed after a 14-year search to locate it. Liberty Bell 7, the capsule that NASA had initially lost, had been finally recovered thanks to Curt Newport and the Kanasas Cosmosphere and Space Center.
- 5.
In 1911, six naval officers were chosen from the surface fleet as the first Naval aviation trainees. At the time, the uniform footwear of sailors was black shoes, which was logical on the coal-burning ships at this time. On the land-based airfields, the new aviation students soon discovered that the constant requirement to remove the brown dust from their black shoes was a problem. As a practical solution they purchased, at their own expense, brown high-top shoes and leggings. Two years later, after much debate, the Navy Bureau adopted the brown shoes and leggings as the permanent uniform of Naval Aerial Aviators, which remained in force until July 1976.
- 6.
In addition to the NASA’s own Gemini program, the USAF had expressed interest in flying Gemini missions for their Manned Orbiting Laboratory Program (MOL, 1963–1969) and had selected a cadre of 17 military pilots. Though their training was mainly focused upon the systems and hardware of the MOL laboratory and in the clandestine observations that program was to explore, the launch and recovery phases would be on a (‘Blue’) Gemini spacecraft, suitably modified for its new role. Those modifications included a transfer hatch in its heat shield, the integrity of which was tested in the re-flight of the former Gemini 2 spacecraft, on its second unmanned suborbital flight in November 1966. This was the only flight in the MOL program, which was cancelled in June 1969. [8]
References
A detailed account of Grissom’s first spaceflight can be found in Liberty Bell 7, the Suborbital Mercury Flight of Virgil I. Grissom, Colin Burgess, Springer-Praxis, 2014.
For a full account of John Young’s early years and career see Forever Young: A Life of Adventure in Air and Space, John W. Young with James R. Hansen, University Press of Florida, 2012; see also John Young, One Man’s Conquest of Space, David J. Shayler, Spaceflight Volume 24, No. 5, May 1982, pp. 221-224; Volume 25, No.1 January 1983, pp. 30-32, No. 5, May 1983, pp. 219-220, No. 6, June 1983, pp. 275-276, and Nos 9/10 September/October 1983, pp. 370, British Interplanetary Society; and John W. Young American and International Hero, by Dana Holland, unofficial website www.johnwyoung.org [Last accessed December 4, 2017]
Astronautical and Aeronautical Events of 1962, p. 28 and p. 47.
Forever Young: A Life of Adventure in Air and Space, John W. Young with James R. Hansen, University Press of Florida, 2012, pp. 48-50
Reference 4, p. 50
This Day in Aviation: Operation High Jump, Bryan R. Swopes, April 3, 2017. www.thisdayinaviation.com/3-april-1962, last accessed October 30, 2017
NASA JSC Oral History Project, Thomas K. Mattingly II, November 6, 2001.
The Last of NASA’s Original Pilot Astronauts, Expanding the Space Frontier in the Late Sixties, David J. Shayler and Colin Burgess, Springer-Praxis, 2017.
Gemini, Virgil ‘Gus’ Grissom, Macmillan, 1968, p. 98.
Starfall, Betty Grissom with Henry Still, Crowell, 1974, p, 129.
Reference 10, p. 144.
Reference 10, p. 149.
Reference 9, pp. 93-95
Liberty Bell 7, The Suborbital Mercury Flight of Virgil I. Grissom, Colin Burgess, Springer-Praxis, 2014, pp. 64-65.
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Shayler, D.J. (2018). Gus and John. In: Gemini Flies!. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68142-9_5
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