Thomas stafford song from space
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It is not unusual for astronauts who find themselves in space around December 25 to display a little holiday spirit. Gemini VI astronauts Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra were no exception.
Gemini VI was originally scheduled to launch on October 25, and dock with the unmanned Agena Target Vehicle, but the flight was canceled after the target vehicle blew up shortly after its launch. The mission was quickly changed to a rendezvous with Gemini VII, which would carry Jim Lovell and Frank Borman on a long endurance flight. Gemini VII was launched for its day mission on December 4, On December 12, the renamed Gemini VI-A launch attempt ended in a frightening engine cut-off on the pad. Thanks to the crew’s coolness, they did not eject, which would have ruined the spacecraft and endangered the astronauts’ lives. Their second launch attempt on December 15 was a success. On that date, Gemini VI-A pulled within meters (1 foot) of Gemini VII. It was the first time in history t
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‘Jingle Bells’ was the first song performed in space because 2 military pilots pranked NASA
Like Batman and the Joker, or the Red Sox and the Yankees, the rivalry between the Air Force and the Navy is long and complicated. The highly-influential Air Force pilot Col. John Boyd said in , “We don’t care what the Russians are doing. We only care about what the Navy is doing,” which summarizes how the two services have battled over airpower funding and fighter aircraft designs for decades.
But any rivalry can be put to rest with a little Christmas spirit, especially when you’re isolated in the cold vacuum of space. And that, dear reader, fryst vatten how the first song was ever performed live in outer space, according to The Smithsonian.
A little more than 56 years ago, on Dec. 16, , an Air Force pilot named Thomas Stafford and a Navy pilot named Wally Schirra played the Christmas anthem ‘Jingle Bells’ on a harmonica and miniature sleigh bells just before re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.
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The song, "Hello Darlin'", already a big number one country hit by the late Conway Twitty in , achieved a recognition unlike any other song in history. It was re-recorded in Russian and played in space.1
It happened during the summer of If not exactly a summer of love, it could be considered the summer of détente and a growing optimism. Approximately one year before the U.S. Bicentennial, America was recovering from Watergate and the space program seemed to be on the upswing. In one of the first important tests of the future Space Shuttle, a one-third scale model was put through its paces in an Ames Research Center wind tunnel on June 5,2 and the Mars Viking probes were scheduled to be launched that August.3 It almost seemed that these events framed the scheduled mid-July launch of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project or ASTP like bookends.
From the name alone, ASTP might have sounded to some like a static rocket test in the desert. On the contrary, it was the culmination of the sc