Ghosts of Arlington Podcast

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here We have finally reached the end of the Apollo program, but the return of Apollo 17 from the moon doesn't mark the end of the space race era just yet. When the Soviets abandoned their mission to the moon, they went all in on near-Earth observations and started the era of the space station. The Space Race series introduction music is Lift...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week we start with the reasons why the Apollo 15 crew's careers all ended in a state of ignominy after one of the more successful moon missions, followed by a few eulogies - Apollo 15 astronaut James Irwin and Apollo 12 astronaut Dick Gordon (oops!). We wrap up the episode with the story of Apollo 16, the penultimate Apollo mission...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here After eulogizing Alan Shepard, the first American in space, we will take a look at Apollo 15, what is often referred to as the most successful Apollo mission. It had everything - a beautiful location near lunar foothills, a rover - A CAR! - to drive around in, a memerable experiment broadcast for all the world to see, and the first every DEE...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week, Alan Shepard, the first American in Space, finally get the change to go back after a decade of being grounded due to an inner ear problem. While on the moon, Shepard provided on of the more memorible moments of the Apollo program when he hit two golf balls with a makeshift six iron. After returning to Earth, the avid golfer donate...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here When one finds out that one is a direct descendent of the first person executed for murder in Colonial America, one has to share the story (it's me, I am one). My 11th Great Grandpa John Billington journey on the Mayflower and signed the Mayflower Compact, but he was not a Puritan, and 10 years later, he was hanged for the murder of a m...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here Thanks to the 1995 Tom Hanks movie of the same name, Apollo 13 is arguably the best known of the Apollo missions. Public attentnion and support of the Apollo program was falling, but after an onboard explosion but the Apollo 13 astronauts' lives in danger, the entire world waited with bated breath to see if NASA would be able to get the...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week, we catch up with Buzz Aldrin's post NASA life, and then move on to the mission that followed Apollo 11 to the moon - Apollo 12. While NASA was excited to continue to explore the moon, many were questioning if there was anything else to gain versus the great cost of the lunar missions. The Space Race series introduction music...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here After the successful Apollo 11 mission, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins quickly realized that their lives would never be the same. This week, we will look at what Armstrong and Collins, the two members of Apollo 11 who have passed on, did with the rest of their busy and full lives. The Space Race series introduction music is...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here After Apollo 11's successful landing, this week we will cover their lunar activities, including Neil Armstrong's first steps and first words, which have gone down in history and what Buzz Aldrin considers his historic lunar first, which for some reason did not make it into the history books - at least not the one I had in high scho...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here I am back from my trip and this week's episodes starts out with two short eulogies. Gemini 4 & Apollo 9 commaned James McDivitt passed away on October 13th at the age of 93 and my grandfather, Korean war veteran John Ireton who I mentioned at the beginning of Episode 12, passed away at the age of 90. After that, we get into on of, i...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here The big day is FINALLY here - July 16, 1969 - launch day for Apollo 11. We'll talk about some of the day-of pre-launch preparations and traditions all astronauts went through and get this flight underway. It takes about 72 hours to fly from the moon, so we'll also talk about some of the ways this crew passed the time. The Space Rac...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here Wernher von Braun is a brilliant rocket scientest whose name has come up multiple time in during the space race. This natuarlized American citizen is undoubtedly the reason the US beat the Soviets to the moon (and according to some experts, the reason the US got to the moon at all). He was also undoubtledly a member of the Nazi party and an...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here Just like NASA, the Soviet Space Program has moved on to its third-generation spacecraft with a goal of landing on the moon, and just liek NASA, this third-generation craft was initially full of problems. Before getting back to the Apollo 11 crew's preparation for that flight, we will look at some of the Soviet's struggles and how...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week we will take a look at the crew of Apollo 11 and how each came to be selected as a member of the most ambitious mission undertaken in human history - the first attempt to land people on the moon. The Space Race series introduction music is Lift Off by kennysvoice . As always, a very special thanks to Mountain Up Cap Company for its...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here There is a lot going on in today episode from eulogizing two members of Apollo 7 (Mercury 7 veteran Wall Schirra and Apollo rookie Donn Eisele), and the final three missions before the American moonshot (Apollo 8, Apollo 9, Apollo 10). Not only were these missions vital to prepare for Apollo 11, but they also set a few records. After Apollo...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here Thanks to an investigation that looked to fix the problems of the Apollo Program versus sweeping them under the rug, NASA was able to get the resources needed to fix the issues and gain the support of Congress and the American public once more. After an 18-month hiatus to completely rebuild the Apollo spacecraft, astronauts successfully retu...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here It should come as no surprise that the Apollo 1 shook up how most everyone felt about the Apollo Program – the government, the media, and the general population – but the group that has the most to lose, NASA, and particularly its astronauts, never wavered in their desire to honor the memories of their fallen colleagues by continuing the mis...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week we talk about Apollo 1, and how the the program planned to take astronauts to the moon, took three lives instead and  lead some to begin talking about the cancellation of manned spaceflight in the United States all together. The Space Race series introduction is Lift Off by kennysvoice . As always, a very special thanks to Mountain...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here Two weeks ago I had the chance to attend a funeral at Arlington National Cemetery and I just had to share the experience with you, so please join me in honoring the life and service of retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Gene Hill. As always, a very special thanks to Mountain Up Cap Company for its continued help to spread the word about the pod...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week, we wrap up Project Gemini with the final four Gemini missions and mention how those final missions answered all of the remaining questions about space travel to the moon and skills that would be needed for lunar exploration. But the Gemini missions couldn't provide information about the physical composition of the surface of...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week we take a look at NASA astronaut class 3 and then briefly overview the other 20 astronaut classes NASA has selected since then, but the meat of the episode is the nearly disasterous Gemini 8 misison that a clear thinking and quick acting Neil Armstrong brought back from the brink and the disaster that killed the Gemini 9 main crew...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here On this week's episode, we see Mercury 7 Astronaut Gordo Cooper's career come to an end so we eulogize him while talking about the final 3 Gemini missions of 1965, the most active year to date for NASA manned space missions.  Additionally, we talk about a very important aspect of military culture, unit patches. Starting with Gemini...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here This week we being to see the US space program come into its own and really begin surpassing its Soviet rival. With the Gemini 3 mission, the US proves that it can manually maneuver a capsule in space and with Gemini 4, it shows that like Soviet cosmonauts, US astronauts can also spacewalk - and the US spacewalk was twice as long as the Sovi...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here After the Mercury 7 were selected, an unofficial project sought to test 13 women pilots to see if they pass  the same tests. The Mercury 13 - or FLATs (Fist Lady Astronauts Trainees) - all passed the Phase I tests but the project was cancelled before most of them could go any further. Because they had no test pilot experence (a career field...

I'd love to hear your thoughts - send me a text here Only one of the Mercury Seven astronauts never returned to space - Scott Carpenter. Only two of the Mercury Seven are buried at Arlington but regardles of their final resting spot, they will all get an eulogy.  With that said, today, I will share the rest of Scott Carpenter's story. After that, I will launch into the story of Project Ge...