 | ||||
| ||||
| ||||
| ||||
Memphis, TN - It nice to be back home. I hope you all had a great 4th of July. Sue and I cooked hot dogs at home and then went to the Redbirds baseball game and sat on the grass in an area they call "The Bluffs" because they were the only seats available. The game went extra innings and then we had a fireworks show. Great way to spend the 4th.Please include your class year with your e-mails.
Within the five member sphere of our peripatetic family we, as well as others, were privileged to bear witness and hence give testament to America's "Space Race", and the "Apollo 11 Lunar Landing Mission". But this is really a story about my father, Kenneth Ballard.Without any formal education at this crucial period, he nevertheless worked and hobnobbed with the best and the brightest, and contributed more than his share behind the scenes in getting yon "Saturn V" moon rocket crew off the ground and getting them back home safe again.Armed with only a high school diploma from what was nevertheless one of the most "prestigious" private high schools of the day, "Cass Tech.", in...would you believe...Detroit, Michigan. (Those-damn-Yankees-come-down-here-and-tell-us-what-to-do-it-never-stops !!). For what it's worth, and apparently it was worth a lot to the folks he would ultimately work with, my Dad had the highest IQ in the whole damn school, and Ma says that when the Army drafted my father (end of WW II), they didn't have a scale to measure his intelligence ! (You wanna argue with my 83 y.o. Ma, do so at your own peril). At any rate, you can see by my writing skills that I ain't got a tinker of the real talent my Dad had.My father was a self-made man.One day my father was sitting amongst his fellow co-workers, ole Werner Von Braun in tow, when apparently an engineering bone of contention was raised in the group. My father spoke up, proffering a solution. Apparently his solution was in conflict with some "Phd" puff ball who thought his "solution" should receive priority consideration, and apparently it was my father's solution that was adapted by both Von Braun and the group, according to an in-house newsletter. Mr. "Phd" puff ball later complained to Von Braun, challenging my father's "qualifications". Von Braun's response : "We're here to learn, not compete".That's why Von braun was a leader. And in his small way, my father was a leader too.We didn't know anything about this incident til my father died and we dug into his papers. My father wasn't a show off, like some people we know...ahem...Stories of a similar nature leaked out from time to time about how my father had to instruct and advise those same "Phd" puff balls while we were overseas, but of course he wasn't compensated with a salary equal to the "more educated".Dad was a dreamer. All his life, he wanted to go to the moon. When he was a kid, much to the chagrin of his friends, he often (but not always) substituted baseball for a day and night in the coal bin basement of his parents semi-Victorian home, absorbed in his chemistry...uh...experiments. His friends used to tease him about his love of things scientific and his endless wonder about the universe. His closest childhood friend, who later became my step-father (OK, never mind, move on) told me my Dad as a kid once excitedly pointed to the night sky and exclaimed, "Look, it's the Aurora Borealis ! Look !" Pretending to be bored, his friends rolled their eyes and turned their backs. "What's a matter with you !! It's the Aurora Borealis !!" Seeing they were driving my father crazy, they finally looked. "Hah, hah, gottcha", they said !!That was my Dad. My father never got the chance to go to the moon. But his legacy as a senior engineer, his crucial work on the design/function and maintenance in guidance and control, the spinning gyros without which there is no moon landing, or coming back, was an indispensable contribution he and others made to put America first on the moon.Although my Dad's footprint is not on the lunar surface, in a broader sense, when Neil Armstrong made that first step down the "Eagle's" ladder, it really wasn't just Neil Armstrong's imprint that engraved the lunar dust, but my father's imprint and the imprint of all the other determined engineers that got the first man there.I want to leave some space (lame pun intended) for others to contribute to John Turrentine's great idea of commemorating the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing. I hope Tommy will be as patient and accommodating to all as per usual.I'll close by saying that I hope from the bottom of my soul (OK my heart then) that my father's legacy was not wasted. We are squandering so much of the progress we've made as a country. As a species. The need to reach out is not some fickle whim. It's in our genes. It's in our soul. I don't care what your religious or philosophical bent is. The need to explore boundless possibilities is buried deep in our psyche. Yes, we need water, food, shelter; but to do nothing but exist on this planet, slowly sucking our resources dry while ignoring the infinite resources of space; that my friends, would be the most grievous sin...against ourselves.Going to the moon does not mean just going to the moon. It never did. 
Where was President Kennedy’s “We Choose to Go to the Moon” speech made and when?Which of the following was NOT a goal of the Mercury Program:Orbit a manned spacecraft around the earth?Investigate man’s ability to perform in space?Recover man & spacecraft safely?Practice docking procedures?Which of the following was NOT one of the original seven astronauts?Scott CarpenterGordon CooperJohn GlennGus GrissomWally SchirraAlan Shepard“Buzz” AldrinThe last Apollo flight was to rendezvous with the Russian Soyuz capsule. Which astronaut was the Mission Commander for this flight? (Hint: he was one of the original seven)5. Can you identify the astronaut in the attached photo?