50 Years ago today, 5/15/63.
SkyMan
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The original seven American astronauts were picked in 1959 to fly the Mercury space capsule. In 1961 Alan Shepard became the first American in space. In 1962 John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth. Fifty years ago today, 5/15/63, "Gordo" Cooper became the last American to ride a Mercury capsule. He was so cool that when there were various holds placed on his launch he fell asleep in the capsule. He orbited the Earth 22 times, staying in space for ~ 34 hours. His automatic (e.g. machine operated) re-entry equipment failed, and he had to manually line up and fire his re-entry rockets. In so doing he actually landed closer to the recovery ship than any of the previous re-entries, all 5 of which had been automatic.
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I have NO idea what that stands for, nor does anyone else that I've been in communication with. People have said it's a WP for West Point, but Cooper did NOT go to West Point. He was a Mason, and various people have mentioned that it might be a Masonic sign, but another flown note collector delved into Masonic symbolism and could not find anything.
So, anybody that has any good guesses, please post them.
U.S. Type Set
Your posts are fantastic. It's amazing what a motivated nation can do when people work together. People sometimes ask what's the value of a space program? Why bother?
Well, in the virtual absence of one, its value is a little clearer - to me, at least.
As a kid I remember pilling up in the gym to watch the first shuttle launch on TV. It was exciting! The Mercury, Gemeni, and Apollo programs were a bit before my time. I do remember SkyLab. How exciting June 1969 must have been. How un-inspiring our current national goals are....... can someone remind me what they are? Are we just treading water now?
<< <i>Skyman,
Your posts are fantastic. It's amazing what a motivated nation can do when people work together. People sometimes ask what's the value of a space program? Why bother?
Well, in the virtual absence of one, its value is a little clearer - to me, at least.
As a kid I remember pilling up in the gym to watch the first shuttle launch on TV. It was exciting! The Mercury, Gemeni, and Apollo programs were a bit before my time. I do remember SkyLab. How exciting June 1969 must have been. How un-inspiring our current national goals are....... can someone remind me what they are? Are we just treading water now? >>
Actually it's almost worse than treading water. We are paying the Russians to carry our astronauts up in their (45 year old design) Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station that was predominantly built with our money and our lift capacity.
For those that wonder about the value of the space program, just look at Silicon Valley. While computational power would certainly have increased in the intervening 50 years, it was the space program that put the emphasis on smaller, lighter more powerful chips and the software to run them. Think of all the offshoots of that. Almost as important as the development of small powerful chips was the development of small medical devices to tell doctors on the ground what was happening to astronauts in space. Many of the micro-medical techniques are direct offshoots of that. From those two major advances you get to the more standard advances that occur with new technologies... new materials/metals etc., new manufacturing techniques, new electronics etc. etc. Finally, purely from a management position, because of the overwhelming complexity of the project, the Apollo project forced to creation a new management template that we now call system's management. Needless to say, all of the above dramatically increased the US's competitive capability.
U.S. Type Set
The WP is intriguing. Maybe the W is an upside down M? Mercury Project?
Interesting that Cooper chose to put it on the great seal. The triangle and eye represent The Eye of Providence, and ANNUIT COEPTIS roughly translates to "with God's approval". It was obviously designed as a reference to the early nation with the 13 levels of the pyramid and the 1776 date. But maybe Cooper felt space flight had God's approval?
The Eye of Providence is also associated with Freemasonry and has been used by Masons for hundreds of years. It reminds members that God is watching their hearts and actions. So maybe Cooper's ties to Freemasonry had something to do with it.
Or not. Maybe WP stands for Wright-Patterson AFB, where Cooper suspects the UFO film was secreted by the Air Force's UFO investigators, Project Blue Book. He was adamant to the end about his UFO sightings.
Lance.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/BxkY3fNtFUVZnSTR9
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https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNCqYiMqf5WV3upssjrtWbcDONsjsmMb6PmYmR0nz1-kfh_yoic_regKXzYvAGmxQ?key=al9GRnJJVzFlMlU2M2tSRmxoWDlVOEN5ZU5hMEl3
<< <i>Thanks Marty!
I have NO idea what that stands for, nor does anyone else that I've been in communication with. People have said it's a WP for West Point, but Cooper did NOT go to West Point. He was a Mason, and various people have mentioned that it might be a Masonic sign, but another flown note collector delved into Masonic symbolism and could not find anything.
So, anybody that has any good guesses, please post them. >>
Project Mercury. with the M inverted.
Looking for Top Pop Mercury Dime Varieties & High Grade Mercury Dime Toners.
Hard to believe the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs were created, built, performed and completed between 41 and 54 years ago (1959 through 1972).
Much of the drive behind the US Manned Space Program (and unmanned program) derived from the Cold War and the competition between the USA and the Soviet Union. Had the Cold War not have taken place the world would be a different place today. Many of the technologies that the world benefits from today would not have been invented when they were (or maybe not at all).
Manned space flight will eventually be taken up by the private sector. When it is, it would not surprise me to see a repeat of the successes of the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs. The driving force behind same will not be a new Cold War, instead it will be economics and the creations of new markets that will allow companies to make money.
All of the folks in the space program are the best IMO, but a lot of us who grew up in that era have a special feeling for the early "strap a rocket to me and let r rip" pilots who took this on................
The same scenario would also apply to diamond.
Diamond is made of carbon. My vague recollection is that carbon derives from hydrogen and that hydrogen is a very common substance throughout the universe. Scientists have theorized that in large, gaseous planets [like Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in our solar system] the pressures present in the core of these planets has squeezed hyrdogen atoms to the point where they turn into carbon and into diamond.
In the book "2010" [a sequel to "2001 A Space Odyessy"] Arthur C. Clarke covers this topic. At the end of the book Jupiter [at the instigation of the "Monolith"] collapses into itself. The pressures of this collapse cause the temperatures in its core to rise to the point where it explodes and turns into a mini sun that in turn assists the development of primative life forms on the moon Europa. As part of the explosion of Jupiter, portions of its diamond core are hurled into space. One such portion of the diamond core is larger than Mt. Everest.
When this becomes known to humans back on earth the diamond market goes nuts, since the notion of diamonds being "rare" is punctured with the news of mountain sized diamonds floating around the solar system.
There was even a reference in the book to a scientific papers dating to the mid 1900's that suggested diamond cores in the four gaseous planets of our solar system; and the book made reference to the Beatles song "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds".
As for the PW or WP or what ever, makes for a good mystery
and would be a good show for the History Detectives on PBS
Steve
I was thinking something as easy as PassWord????who knows
the symbol looks like a stylized combination of the Greek letters Sigma and Rho. I see Mercury 8, where "Coop" was backup, was Sigma 7. Also Merury 9 - you know more about this than I. Both letters have numerous mathematical and scientific meanings alone and in combination that could apply. Could be something simple too, of course. I might place a bet on these letters. There may be another symbol in the note as he has used part of the note in the creation of his little message. Maybe there is some numerical or fraternal meaning too.
Best wishes,
Eric
Discoveries and observations of images captured by the various telescopes (including the Hubble) are making THESE the most fantastic and interesting of times to be living in!
The space program led the way for recent discoveries that help us to better understand the history of the Universe.
Great stuff!!!!
Happy, humble, honored and proud recipient of the “You Suck” award 10/22/2014
Taylor
AB
<< <i>Probably one day a private space venture will haul back a huge rock to Earth orbit (to be mined and sold) of pure gold driving the price of gold down to $35 an ounce like it was circa 1963. Poof, there go all your bullion and most of your rare gold coins. It won't matter who's holder they are in then. >>
The price of gold in 1963 at $35 an ounce was set by the US government as the official price but was not reality as to where it would have been if gold had been legal. The government held the price down for many years. When the gold standard was retired and gold became legal to own again in the US, the price shot up like a rocket.
I remember the day that Alan B. Shepard was sent into space. It was a very short time and a very short flight, just to see if we could do it. It was a very great day for the USA. The Soviets were far ahead of us at this time but it did not take long for the US to take the lead. The space program from 1959-1972 was the best government program ever. We would not have the internet today and many many other modern things, like fast computers,cell phones,etc., if it weren't for the space program.
You know, it's funny that most people remember that John Glenn was the first person to orbit the earth in outer space, but not many actually know that Alan Shepard was the first US astronaut in space. Just ask someone who the first US astronaut was and most will say John Glenn.
Thanks for the post - time sure does fly. Man walks on moon is now ancient history. Hard to believe that we haven't sent a man to mars yet. I was hoping to see it in my lifetime, but I guess it won't happen-maybe even never.
Bob
<< <i>
Thanks for the post - time sure does fly. Man walks on moon is now ancient history. Hard to believe that we haven't sent a man to mars yet. I was hoping to see it in my lifetime, but I guess it won't happen-maybe even never.
Bob >>
I am just barely old enough to remember the last moon landing in 1972 - I remember it because we were at a babysitter's house watching the landing on TV and my brother and kept running out the front door to look at the moon trying to find the astronauts and their lander. I just believe it is a national disgrace that the whole space programme was shelved and our tax dollars are now bailing out banks, insurance companies and Wall St. fat cats. At least then we got something viable for our tax dollars.
And you wanna know what is really disgusting? All the plans etc for the Saturn V rockets were destroyed - so in the off chance that NASA gets funding to build a programme to go to Mars they have to go back and reverse engineer rockets that are sitting in scrapyards.
``https://ebay.us/m/KxolR5
<< <i>...You know, it's funny that most people remember that John Glenn was the first person to orbit the earth in outer space, but not many actually know that Alan Shepard was the first US astronaut in space. Just ask someone who the first US astronaut was and most will say John Glenn... >>
The first person to orbit the Earth was Yuri Gagarin, a Russian (well, technically a citizen of the Soviet Union). He flew one full orbit, ~25,000 miles, in April 1961. Alan Shepard's 300 mile flight wasn't until May 1961, and John Glenn's 3 orbit flight wasn't until February 1962, by which time the Soviet Union's Gherman Titov had already flown a 16 orbit flight.
The Soviet's kicked the US's ass all over the place in Manned spaceflight during the first half of the 1960's. The US did not get a "First" significant Manned spaceflight "First" until 1965 when Gemini 3 became the first Manned spacecraft to change orbit.
U.S. Type Set
My oldest piece of space related memorabilia and a prize of my Russian space memorabilia so far is a pin I found on a city bus in the USSR back in 1991 - it was made in 1959 and commemorates the crash landing of a Luna spacecraft on the surface of the moon on 14 Sept 1959. I am looking for the gold medal commemorating Valentina Tereshkova's 1963 flight into space.
<< <i>
<< <i>...You know, it's funny that most people remember that John Glenn was the first person to orbit the earth in outer space, but not many actually know that Alan Shepard was the first US astronaut in space. Just ask someone who the first US astronaut was and most will say John Glenn... >>
The first person to orbit the Earth was Yuri Gagarin, a Russian (well, technically a citizen of the Soviet Union). He flew one full orbit, ~25,000 miles, in April 1961. Alan Shepard's 300 mile flight wasn't until May 1961, and John Glenn's 3 orbit flight wasn't until February 1962, by which time the Soviet Union's Gherman Titov had already flown a 16 orbit flight.
The Soviet's kicked the US's ass all over the place in Manned spaceflight during the first half of the 1960's. The US did not get a "First" significant Manned spaceflight "First" until 1965 when Gemini 3 became the first Manned spacecraft to change orbit. >>
Not me, I met Alan Shepard! I am sure I told you the story.
Sky, did you think my suggestion stupid or something?
Best wishes,
Eric
Great post, and a very cool piece of history.
<< <i>
<< <i>...You know, it's funny that most people remember that John Glenn was the first person to orbit the earth in outer space, but not many actually know that Alan Shepard was the first US astronaut in space. Just ask someone who the first US astronaut was and most will say John Glenn... >>
The first person to orbit the Earth was Yuri Gagarin, a Russian (well, technically a citizen of the Soviet Union). He flew one full orbit, ~25,000 miles, in April 1961. Alan Shepard's 300 mile flight wasn't until May 1961, and John Glenn's 3 orbit flight wasn't until February 1962, by which time the Soviet Union's Gherman Titov had already flown a 16 orbit flight.
The Soviet's kicked the US's ass all over the place in Manned spaceflight during the first half of the 1960's. The US did not get a "First" significant Manned spaceflight "First" until 1965 when Gemini 3 became the first Manned spacecraft to change orbit. >>
Yeah, I knew that, just forgot to put in US astronaut to orbit the earth. Sorry I'm Old-slow and sometimes I omit things.
<< <i>...
Not me, I met Alan Shepard! I am sure I told you the story.
Sky, did you think my suggestion stupid or something?
Best wishes,
Eric >>
Eric,
I did not respond simply because I had no clue. Sorry!!! Your idea certainly sounds feasible to me. Congratulations on thinking it up!!!
I should be seeing Scott Carpenter next week and I hope to remember to ask him about the symbol. Maybe he'll know what it is, and can confirm your idea.
All the best.
U.S. Type Set