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Old, cool, and interesting Stuff

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"On the morning of February 18, 1977, at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California, a Boeing 747 did something no airliner had ever done before. With the 150,000-pound Space Shuttle Enterprise strapped to its back, Aircraft Commander Fitzhugh "Fitz" Fulton and his crew pushed the throttles forward and lifted the most extraordinary combination of flying machines the world had ever seen into the sky. Nobody was aboard Enterprise. The orbiter was unpowered and sealed shut. Over the next two hours and five minutes, the mated pair climbed to 16,000 feet, reached 287 mph, and handled remarkably well.
The 747, call sign NASA 905, was originally built for American Airlines in 1970 and flew passengers on domestic routes before NASA acquired it in 1974. Engineers stripped the interior, reinforced the fuselage, bolted mounting struts to the top, and upgraded the engines. Enterprise itself was never built to fly in space. It had no engines and no functional heat shield. But it was the pathfinder that proved the entire Space Shuttle concept could work. That first captive flight led to four more unmanned tests, then crewed flights, and finally on August 12, 1977, astronauts Fred Haise and Gordon Fullerton separated Enterprise from the 747 at 24,250 feet and glided it to a landing on the dry lakebed below.
Enterprise was originally supposed to be named Constitution, but more than 100,000 Star Trek fans wrote letters to the White House, and President Gerald Ford made the call to rename it. Today, Enterprise sits at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City, and NASA 905 is on display at Space Center Houston. Forty-nine years ago today, they flew together for the first time and proved that the impossible was just an engineering problem waiting to be solved."
 
init4fun said:
In the late 1950s the dangers of youngsters "huffing" model airplane glue became such an issue that many model shops required an adult purchaser...... :yikes:

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And then they changed the glue and made it terrible...

And speaking of Airplane and glue, I'm so old that nobody at work gets it when things are a bit crazy and I say "Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue"
 
stereofanboy said:
I've always had a slightly voyeuristic and vicarious streak in me. It isn't that I can't enjoy things firsthand, but I find other people's actions and thoughts to be interesting.

I guess that is why I watch movies and read novels. It's like witnessing other people's lives and to an extent, experiencing them. History has the same draw for me, as does old stuff which is the point of this thread. When I use old stuff, it's like a window into the life of the person who owned it before.

I've been selling some of an old record collection on e-Bay and BarterTown lately, and I really enjoy going through these records. I play test every one and examine the cover before offering it. On many of them, I notice handwritten notes, often dates left by the original owner who also had a huge collection of home made tapes. I'm fairly certain that the dates are when he listened to or taped the album.

Today, I listened to a record that had my birth month written on the back of the jacket. It was a strange feeling when I considered that perhaps no one had listened to that record since the month I was born, over 45 years ago, and that that record had been waiting in it's jacket for the entirety of my life.

Does anyone else think about things like this when handling old records or gear or whatever?
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Went and saw The Simon and Garfunkel story. Really enjoyed the show ! The performers and the band was amazing , not only singing the songs , but a deep dive in their history . They started as students going to the same school in Brooklyn NY and first met in their school play Alice in Wonderland and how they first started off as Tom & Jerry went their separate ways for a while then became Simon and Garfunkel then went their separate ways and reunited for their concert in the Central Park . Met an interesting older couple and while waiting for the show we played a game see if you could spot a millennial ! lol , highly recomend this show a must see if it’s in your area !
 
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