Vanguard, how well I remember! It did not do the job! The administration went to Wernher Von Braun, and asked him if the U.S. Army's Jupiter C could be used and the rest is history.
After the Air Force I worked on the LEM and Apollo projects, in my electronics engineering days.
>Hardly anyone remembers the Vanguard!
>
>Pop worked as a science guy at McGregor Range and White Sands. On Saturdays I would go to the desert and watch them test the old Nike systems, On Sundays I would go to Juarez and watch the bull fights. He was so cheap - we always sat on the "sunny" side of the arena.
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>The Chinese Control Room looked like the old Apollo Mission Control.
>
>JFK's educational push stole all my free time. I was born to be a loafer and a C student. JFK took that away from me:-)
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>>Terry;
>>
>>When I was stationed at Orlando Air Force Base in 1960-61 I would listen to the short wave radio from the Cape. "Count down, count down, ten minus five minutes"! We knew when a launch would occur and go outside to face east. Up went the shot and you could see the trail as it went. Cool! :)
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>>Tom
>>
>>>
http://english.people.com.cn/200510/12/eng20051012_214001.html>>>
>>>Any of you ancient enough to remember NASA satillite and Mercury launches on the B&W TV before heading to school should get CCTV9's cable signal. Lot's of exciting stuff going on in China.