With less than a week to go until the centennial celebration, Dwayne Day has an interesting bit of space history about Robert Heinlein over at The Space Review.

Scott Lowther is now selling a kit for the DC-X.

Jim Oberg debunks it:

In late 1958, as NASA begin defining how to select astronauts, President Eisenhower directed that test pilots be the pool from which candidates were selected. The actual flight experience of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions in hindsight validated that standard. Because of the intimate integration of the pilot in the spacecraft

Jim Oberg debunks it:

In late 1958, as NASA begin defining how to select astronauts, President Eisenhower directed that test pilots be the pool from which candidates were selected. The actual flight experience of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions in hindsight validated that standard. Because of the intimate integration of the pilot in the spacecraft

Jim Oberg debunks it:

In late 1958, as NASA begin defining how to select astronauts, President Eisenhower directed that test pilots be the pool from which candidates were selected. The actual flight experience of Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions in hindsight validated that standard. Because of the intimate integration of the pilot in the spacecraft

I’m hearing rumors that Wally Schirra died last night.

[Update a couple minutes later]

OK, apparently Keith heard it on CNN as well.

So, Grissom, Slayton, Schirra, Shepard are gone. Besides Glenn, who’s still with us?

[googling]

OK, Cooper is dead, so it’s just Glenn and Carpenter. They could hold a reunion in a phone booth. And I see that Wikipedia has already updated the Mercury 7 page to reflect Schirra’s passing.

[Update at 12:30 PM EDT]

Here’s the obit from CNN.

Hadn’t thought about that, but it’s true, he was the only astronaut to fly Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.

It’s been forty-six years since the first human went into orbit, and twenty-six since the Shuttle first flew. Here’s what I wrote a year ago, on the forty-fifth and twenty-fifth anniversary.

Ham gets his own comic book.

Keith Cowing has some amusing (and ironic) old space station propaganda.

Jonathan Gewirtz has found some, down in the Everglades. I hadn’t previously been aware that there were plans for a solid booster for the Saturn.