Most Likely Places to Find Alien Life in the Solar System

Jack said:
Can you remember where you were when they landed?

I was at a bar in Manhattan with a girlfriend watching it on TV.
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I kid you not. I was sitting on the top of Neil Armstrong's fathers garage in Wapakoneta watching the TV crew scrum. My Grandparents lived just down the road from Armstrong's parents.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
I kid you not. I was sitting on the top of Neil Armstrong's fathers garage in Wapakoneta watching the TV crew scrum. My Grandparents lived just down the road from Armstrong's parents.
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That is remarkable.
Having played such a pivotal role in 20th century American history, I am surprised I do not know more about Neil Armstrong. I am chalking it up to his purported modesty.

As to another space pioneer, I recently watched a Russian movie about Yuri Gagarin on Netflix, and what a compelling life story that was.
Growing up a humble peasant family under Nazi occupation, seeing his siblings sent off as slave labor to Nazi Germany, and ultimetely rising to the top of the Soviet space program. The type of guy everybody liked, even though he was exceptional, had movie star looks, and was gifted and focused. But people liked him, because he was one of those rare people who are exceptional and talented, but yet extremely modest, thoughtful, and generous. Basically, you could say Gegarin was the opposite of Donald Trump.

Gagarin: First in Space | Netflix
 
Jack said:
THAT is hard to believe, but if YOU say so.
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It’s true. I was only 7. My family is from Wapakoneta. My Aunt was a bridesmaid in Neil Armstrong sisters June’s wedding. My great Uncle was also one of his flight instructors when Armstrong was a teenager.
 
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Cypress said:
That is remarkable.
Having played such a pivotal role in 20th century American history, I am surprised I do not know more about Neil Armstrong. I am chalking it up to his purported modesty.

As to another space pioneer, I recently watched a Russian movie about Yuri Gagarin on Netflix, and what a compelling life story that was.
Growing up a humble peasant family under Nazi occupation, seeing his siblings sent off as slave labor to Nazi Germany, and ultimetely rising to the top of the Soviet space program. The type of guy everybody liked, even though he was exceptional, had movie star looks, and was gifted and focused. But people liked him, because he was one of those rare people who are exceptional and talented, but yet extremely modest, thoughtful, and generous. Basically, you could say Gegarin was the opposite of Donald Trump.

Gagarin: First in Space | Netflix
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That is in part Armstrong’s fault. To come back to Earth and be the most famous person on the planet was a bit of a shock. He apparently decided he wasn’t going to take advantage of his fame. He stopped giving autographs when he found out people were selling them. He wouldn’t do radio or TV interviews. He frustrated his fellow astronauts by not cooperating on opportunities to cash in on their fame.

He famously resigned from his job as an engineering professor at U. of Cincinnati. They changed their criteria for hiring to requiring a PhD or Doctorate to be a professor. Armstrong was grandfathered in but voluntarily resigned on the principle that he wasn’t qualified as he only had a Masters degree.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
That is in part Armstrong’s fault. To come back to Earth and be the most famous person on the planet was a bit of a shock. He apparently decided he wasn’t going to take advantage of his fame. He stopped giving autographs when he found out people were selling them. He wouldn’t do radio or TV interviews. He frustrated his fellow astronauts by not cooperating on opportunities to cash in on their fame.

He famously resigned from his job as an engineering professor at U. of Cincinnati. They changed their criteria for hiring to requiring a PhD or Doctorate to be a professor. Armstrong was grandfathered in but voluntarily resigned on the principle that he wasn’t qualified as he only had a Masters degree.
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That is some good intel on Armstrong.

I actually always respected him for his purported modesty, integrity, and lack of interest in cashing in his fame for wealth. To me, those are key indicators of an exceptional human being. Especially in these Trumpian times we live in, when Republicans admire and worship a president most noted for his arrogance, pettiness, fixation on wealth and materialism, and his lack of character.
 
Cypress said:
That is remarkable.
Having played such a pivotal role in 20th century American history, I am surprised I do not know more about Neil Armstrong. I am chalking it up to his purported modesty.

As to another space pioneer, I recently watched a Russian movie about Yuri Gagarin on Netflix, and what a compelling life story that was.
Growing up a humble peasant family under Nazi occupation, seeing his siblings sent off as slave labor to Nazi Germany, and ultimetely rising to the top of the Soviet space program. The type of guy everybody liked, even though he was exceptional, had movie star looks, and was gifted and focused. But people liked him, because he was one of those rare people who are exceptional and talented, but yet extremely modest, thoughtful, and generous. Basically, you could say Gegarin was the opposite of Donald Trump.
Click to expand...

As a kid I had crushes on all of the astronauts, including Yuri. We weren't supposed to admire him because commie, but it didn't matter. Seemed to me that space and rockets and science transcended those petty political things.
 
Jack said:
That IS cool.
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That same Uncle also served in the 8th AAF in WWII as a B-17 Copilot. His plane was shot down in the last year of the war and he spend the rest of the war as a POW. He came within a few hours of being executed by the Germans for attempting to escape but before they could shoot him Patton's Third Army showed up in the town down the road and the German guards skedaddled.
 
ThatOwlWoman said:
As a kid I had crushes on all of the astronauts, including Yuri. We weren't supposed to admire him because commie, but it didn't matter. Seemed to me that space and rockets and science transcended those petty political things.
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I totally get that!

Gagarin, Armstrong, John Glenn....it seems the space programs were intent on not only selecting people of exceptional technical ability, but human beings of exceptional character and integrity. Probably practical reasons for doing so...the space programs likely were doing psychological profiling in addition to technical ability testing, and they obviously did not want sociopaths, or human beings of mediocre character handling multi-billion dollar machines, and representing their respective nations to the world.

I never considered the exploration of space is not capitalist, communist, or otherwise. During the Apollo missions, I was simply too young to understand the political context of the space race.
Being of the Star Trek generation, I always considered space exploration to be for the benefit of humanity. And when the Russians and Americans established that first joint Apollo-Soyuz mission, that was the bee's knees for me!
 
Cypress said:
I totally get that!

Gagarin, Armstrong, John Glenn....it seems the space programs were intent on not only selecting people of exceptional technical ability, but human beings of exceptional character and integrity. Probably practical reasons for doing so...the space programs likely were doing psychological profiling in addition to technical ability testing, and they obviously did not want sociopaths, or human beings of mediocre character handling multi-billion dollar machines, and representing their respective nations to the world.

I never considered the exploration of space is not capitalist, communist, or otherwise. During the Apollo missions, I was simply too young to understand the political context of the space race.
Being of the Star Trek generation, I always considered space exploration to be for the benefit of humanity. And when the Russians and Americans established that first joint Apollo-Soyuz mission, that was the bee's knees for me!
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You know Ohio has produced more astronauts than any region in the world? Folks from michigan say that it's says something about Ohio that it makes some people want to leave the planet.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
You know Ohio has produced more astronauts than any region in the world? Folks from michigan say that it's says something about Ohio that it makes some people want to leave the planet.
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Heheheheh. I always thought maybe it was because of Wright-Pat AFB, the Wright Brothers, and so on. We didn't live far from there as kids (in Kettering); I still remember the huge sonic booms that would shake the windows and knock things around inside the cupboards when the fighter jets went over.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
That same Uncle also served in the 8th AAF in WWII as a B-17 Copilot. His plane was shot down in the last year of the war and he spend the rest of the war as a POW. He came within a few hours of being executed by the Germans for attempting to escape but before they could shoot him Patton's Third Army showed up in the town down the road and the German guards skedaddled.
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I hope you're jotting all these stories down in a Journal to hand down to your kids and grandkids. You know, rather than some bland "he was born, he lived, he died" statistic in a Family Tree, a little Narrative makes the person come alive, especially if it's historic like in your case.
My grandmother has a Narrative of a direct woman relative that worked in a California mining camp as a Cook and met Kit Carson, I thought that was kinda' cool, ... always wondered about the 'Cook' part though?
 
Mott the Hoople said:
That same Uncle also served in the 8th AAF in WWII as a B-17 Copilot. His plane was shot down in the last year of the war and he spend the rest of the war as a POW. He came within a few hours of being executed by the Germans for attempting to escape but before they could shoot him Patton's Third Army showed up in the town down the road and the German guards skedaddled.
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Coincidentally, the same General my uncle served under.
 
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