Funny how you can always say that.. My hero’s have always been cowboys. The guy who always went his own way, did his own thing. My “Magnificent 7” was the Mercury 7 astrounauts. I was born too unfortunately. I was born early 71 so I didn’t get to see the glory days of the space program. I did get to watch the first launches of the space shuttle(and though we never left orbit it was exciting for me.)
The original seven were True Cowboys. They rode a range that noone ever had ridden before.
I love where SpaceX is in their progress and I hope I get to live to see us land on Mars… but I know that they will have some failures and I just want people to understand that that will not be the end of the world.. it will be the step to the next beginning.
My favorite Astronaut is Gus Grissom. They had all kinds of problems with the early Apollo program. Gus knew it. His whole crew knew it. Maybe they knew that it would take their deaths to “right” the program too if it happened. They probably knew better than anybody that “Go Fever” was going to be their end but they also knew that if it was then it would make the program better(in their own way I think)
Funny how our current situation isn’t much further from that now.. Oh we aren’t going to the moon… we are just trying to “right the ship”.. make our country “true”. Seems like some of the wood is rotten and maybe this ship isn’t quite “seaworthy”. I believe the ship will always reach its destination but not sure of the duration of the trip.
Seams like the destintation just seems to get further out of reach.
7 replies on “My hero’s have always been cowboys!”
We are the same age, Christopher, and I share your love of our spacefaring roots and undaunted cowboy spirit. I remember watching the first Space Shuttle launch from my 4th grade classroom, as well as hearing the news of the Challenger explosion in junior high, but also reliving the early days of Mercury/Gemini/Apollo vicariously through The Right Stuff and being aware of that heroic recent past. Make sure to check out Bill’s “What We Saw” series if you aren’t aware of it — it’s thrilling, and stunningly well done, and I’m so glad to have watched it with my Dad. Getting to desert-camp and visit Edwards AFB as a Boy Scout was an unforgettable formative experience for me too, and is probably where my love of aircraft and our test-pilot history really began. These days I’m watching every SpaceX launch and following their progress toward Mars settlement with great excitement, and one of my prize possessions is a photo of Joe Walker playing at climbing into the X-1A in his cowboy hat and boots. It now hangs in my garage right by where I get in my car, and greets me with irrepressible joy every time I hop in the beast to go for a spin. Such great things await us if we find the courage to cowboy up and attack the future undaunted. Despite all the gloom that may surround us, I can’t wait to see what’s next.
Here’s the shot.
Ride that hoss! Excellent, thank you!
I grew up during the space race. I saw the moon landing live at age 14. My dad played college football at the same time and team as John Glenn. I “met” Neil Armstrong. For that tale, I put a blog on this site titled “My encounter with Neil Armstrong”. It’s old, so you would have to go fairly far back in the blog to find it. Note: It’s really not that intersting, but someone asked for it.
My Grandma’s cousin worked for NASA.
I have a third cousin who worked with original seven astronauts… He used to play poker with them on a plane at base operations. He is quoted as saying Wally was the most personable person.
Dang it! Now I’ve got old Willie Nelson songs runnin through my head…
“I Was A Highwayman”