Me talking Apollo 12 party times with Dick Gordon (left) and Sweet Al Bean (right.) Thank you, Kristen, for taking this photo!
ALAN BEAN (Apollo 12 and Skylab 3) and DICK GORDON (Gemini 11 and Apollo 12): Adorable. We talked about Pete Conrad for a few minutes, which was downright surreal. Oh my goodness.
JOE KERWIN (Skylab 2) and PAUL WEITZ (Skylab 2 and STS-6): Kerwin was downright adorable (word of the day) and very talkative. His former crew mate, Paul Weitz, was very soft-spoken and funny. I am a longtime Skylab fangirl and I am honored to possess their autographs. They were awesome and a lot of fun to chat with.
I also met tons more of iconic astronauts – the photos are in this album on Facebook. All in all, it was a very positive and fun experience…I highly recommend this autograph show experience to all space buffs. I also was honored to meet Francis French, an awesome author, and Dee O’Hara, NASA’s go-to nurse in its golden era. It was just so much fun, gah.
I would also like to thank my friend Jonathan Ward for taking tons of awesome photos, J.L. Pickering (in addition…the Gemini 4 Retro Space Images disc is amazing) and Tim Gagnon, space artist and maker of awesome commemorative patches. I am probably missing lots of people, but I thank you all, especially the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation for putting together such a diverse and awesome range of personalities in one place. I’ll be there again in 2013!
Emily Carney is a writer, space enthusiast, and creator of the This Space Available space blog, published since 2010. In January 2019, Emily’s This Space Available blog was incorporated into the National Space Society’s blog. The content of Emily’s blog can be accessed via the This Space Available blog category.
Note: The views expressed in This Space Available are those of the author and should not be considered as representing the positions or views of the National Space Society.