When I was studying at Purdue, we learned our thermodynamics from an antique steam engine. When I went back in 1964, I found the laboratories packed with the most modern equipment for the study of thermodynamics, some of which had been built by the students themselves.
I met Betty Moore when she entered Mitchell High School as a freshman, and that was it - period, exclamation point!
I had thought training for Mercury was rigorous. Once we got caught up in the Gemini training program, our Mercury training looked pretty soft.
The flight crew for the orbital mission has been picked, and I'm not on it. Of course I've been feeling pretty low for the past few days. All of us are mad because Glenn was picked.
I had never been much of a science-fiction or Buck Rogers fan. I was more interested in what was going on right now than in the centuries to come.
I thought it would be good for the engineers and workmen who were building my spacecraft to see the pilot who would have to fly it hanging around. It might make them just a little more careful than they already were and a little more eager to get the work done on time if they saw how much I cared.
