{"id":9505,"date":"2012-09-06T10:00:22","date_gmt":"2012-09-06T09:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=9505"},"modified":"2024-07-04T00:10:21","modified_gmt":"2024-07-03T23:10:21","slug":"unearthed-nasas-reply-to-my-astronaut-application-in-1969","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/unearthed-nasas-reply-to-my-astronaut-application-in-1969\/","title":{"rendered":"Unearthed! NASA’s reply to my astronaut application in 1969"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

I’m so chuffed to have found some of contents of a letter sent to my by NASA in 1969 (and thanks for unearthing it after all these years, Mum!).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Unearthed!<\/p>\n

When the first manned Moon landings were becoming a real possibility – an\u00a0unbelievably\u00a0exciting time for a young Welsh lad – I wrote to NASA enquiring about possible future employment on the space program.<\/p>\n

I felt sure that by the time I was 18, multiple Moon bases would already be set up, so I fancied something a little more\u00a0adventurous and volunteered myself \u00a0for a mission \u00a0to Mars, which I felt sure would be well underway by 1980.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Unearthed!<\/p>\n

So I wrote to NASA and didn’t expect anything back – but a few weeks later a well-stuffed A4 envelope came through my letter box, with the return address label marked, ‘National\u00a0Aeronautics And Space\u00a0Administration.’<\/p>\n

A letter from NASA! How exciting!<\/p>\n

The swiftly torn open envelope contained all sorts of goodies, including fact sheets about the forthcoming Moon landing, information about proposed missions, and a generous\u00a0selection\u00a0of colour photos, all of which served to fire up this young lad’s\u00a0imagination.<\/p>\n

\"Unearthed!<\/p>\n

Many of the photos went straight up on to my wall, including several stunning shots of Earth taken from previous\u00a0missions.<\/p>\n

Sadly, some of these have long since disappeared – as have some of the fact sheets that came with the package – but I’m still really excited to have been reunited with some of the original letter’s content.<\/p>\n

Although I hadn’t seen this NASA letter for decades, such was its impact on me as a child that I could still remember almost all the details of the package, right down to the colour of the envelope and the address label!<\/p>\n

Here’s some of what was inside:\"NASA<\/p>\n

Ace NASA logo.<\/p>\n

\"Unearthed!<\/p>\n

Great illustration showing the apparent effects of weightlessness on an Earth-bound\u00a0cyclist!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"NASA<\/p>\n

More fab space graphics.<\/p>\n

\"Unearthed!<\/p>\n

Further explanations of gravity.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Colour Apollo 13 photo,\u00a0from\u00a0a time when US space budgets were so massive, NASA could afford to send off big illustrated packs to children in the UK!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I love these NASA illustrations.\"\"<\/p>\n

Here’s my favourite newsletter, which deals with ‘Splashdown Procedures’ of the Apollo 11 craft, and talks about how they might prevent any\u00a0contamination\u00a0by ‘alien organisms.’<\/p>\n

\"Unearthed!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m so chuffed to have found some of contents of a letter sent to my by NASA in 1969 (and thanks for unearthing it after all these years, Mum!).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[456,17],"tags":[408,407,242],"class_list":["post-9505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-photos","tag-moon","tag-nasa","tag-space"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/nasa-press-release-1969-02.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-2tj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9505"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9505\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31426,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9505\/revisions\/31426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}