The Outer Space Connection - Part Two

For a while I was home schooled by my mother. My courses came through the Calvert School. Established in 1905. In the 1950s when I was taking the courses (according to their website) they were shipping out 85 TONS of material. It included everything from books to paper to pencils.

Between 1960 and 1962 I was privately tutored by a wonderful artist named Paula Brown. There were eight of us under her tutilage. Every morning we "fought" over who would carry the American flag, attached to a small pole, at put it up. Then we'd stand around and say the Pledge of Allegiance, after which we'd troop back into the house and begin school

John Glenn

On February 20th, 1962, Mrs. Brown spread blankets out under a tamarind tree and brought out a portable radio. Our lesson that day was listening to the launch and return of the first man to orbit the earth. His name was John Glenn. Every once in a while we older ones would look up into the clear blue sky hoping to see that tiny orbiting craft. We chewed our nails as we waited to hear of his safe return to earth. When we learned about his fiery reentry we were amazed that he'd survived.

I'll never forget seeing the National Geographic cover depicting what it might have looked like. You can see it HERE.

On July 20th, 1969 a group of friends and I crowded around a small black and white TV and watched the first moon landing.

The first moon landing

In April of 1970 my family listened intently to the radio as the reports came in on the Apollo 13 disaster. It was the most successful failure in NASA's history.

Those were some exciting times and I can thank my father for giving me an outer space connection, for helping me to become aware of our tiny planet and its insignificant place within the universe.

When did you discover how BIG space is and how small Earth is in relationship to it? Do you think about it at all? Do you think it's important to go back to the moon, to Mars?