Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Skyman, post: 7902113, member: 28299&quot;]Anyone here read the book or see the movie, &quot;The Right Stuff&quot;?&nbsp; In it Gus Grissom, the second American in space, takes some dimes with him in space.&nbsp; In reality this was 100 dimes, all of which that I have seen have been 1961-D (I own one of these).&nbsp; The flight was in July 1961.</p><p><br /></p><p>When the spacecraft landed the hatch blew out, and the spacecraft sank.&nbsp; Gus was still thought of very highly by the other astronauts and he was given the privilege and distinction to command the first Gemini mission, GT-3 (T stands for Titan, the launch rocket).&nbsp; Grissom named the capsule the <i>Molly Brown</i> and NASA management had a fit.&nbsp; Thereafter they clamped down on astronauts naming spacecraft until Apollo 9 in 1969 (when there were two spacecraft flying, so they needed to distinguish between them).</p><p><br /></p><p>GT-3 launched in March 1965.&nbsp; During the mission it became the first spacecraft in human history to change it&#039;s orbit.</p><p><br /></p><p>Anyhow, on GT-3 Grissom brought only one dime with him, a 1964.&nbsp; After the flight, he took out the coin and the mission survival knife and scratched GT-3 into the dime with the knife.&nbsp; He then gave the coin to Guenter Wendt, who was in charge of spacecraft close-out just before the spacecraft launched.&nbsp; I was lucky enough to buy it.&nbsp; I now own the only dime that Grissom flew on GT-3, so I now am the only person to own a complete set of Grissom flown dimes, one from the second American spaceflight, on the Mercury capsule <i>Liberty Bell 7</i>, and the only one from the first Gemini mission, GT-3.</p><p><br /></p><p>[ATTACH=full]1364557[/ATTACH]</p><p>[ATTACH=full]1364558[/ATTACH][/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in