Everyone Feels Pity For Gus In Those Sunglasses So They Listen To His Stories And Laugh At His Jokes,

I’ve posted this picture before, but I really love this photo of the Deke Slayton and the New Nine laughing during the Nine’s introductory press conference. Only Ed White can keep a poker face.

Ed White, jogging.

From Retro Space Images/NASA…the men of Gemini 4, for Ed White Monday!

Spending this Sunday evening thinking abt how Gus and Deke were best friends, wore matching shirts, built fences and played with bunny rabbits together, flew cross country for fun and played handball and carried bears seven miles through the woods. Deke needed Gus’ help learning to swim, Gus wanted Deke’s help when he almost drowned after Liberty Bell 7, Deke titled his memoir after a Gus-attributed quote in The Right Stuff and also used the same style as Gus’ book title (Gemini! and Deke!). Thinking about these absolute buddies.

Art by me

A Day at the Zoo, or, astronauts during jungle survival training in Panama, 1963. I love how serious and focused everyone in the second photo looks, except for Pete who is on the ground petting the peccary. Classic Pete.

I was watching that video where a group of astronauts answer the most commonly googled questions about space and this was one of the top comments

Like

I have

No idea

What they’re

Talking about

The right stuff. President JFK with the Original Mercury 7, Oct 1963. These Group 1 astronauts were chosen by NASA in 1959. In the front we have Gus Grissom & Gordon Cooper while in the back there is Wally Schirra, Scott Carpenter, John Glenn (the first American to orbit Earth), Deke Slayton & the first American in space, Alan Shepard. There were 6 crewed flights in Project Mercury; Slayton went on to fly on the Apollo-Soyuz mission in 1975. Shepard became the lone member of the group to walk on the moon during Apollo 14 in 1971. Space pioneers.