Oct 28 2008
Why Didn’t I Become an Astronaut?
Why Didn’t I Become an Astronaut? I certainly had the interest; I was a fan of the space program in the extreme! When I was in 7th grade I could name the original seven astronauts,
knew the spacecraft designations, all the jargon, and all the future schedules for Mercury, Gemini and Apollo flights.
I will tell you now, that I even stayed home from school on days that space launches were scheduled. Back in those days there were so many mission “scrubs” and delays, that I sometimes missed two or three days just WAITING for the launch. I didn’t care about much else, SPACE seemed to be the ULTIMATE! The astronauts were almost iconic.
What Heroes! Their careers as fighter pilots and test pilots were the stuff of my daily dreaming. I wanted to be like them! I wanted to fly in space, and to the moon, and MARS!
Then…in a moment….it was all gone.
In 7th grade….I needed glasses! What! NO! That’s disqualifying!! I was alsolutely DEVASTATED!
There were no exceptions; I knew the physical requirements. I knew the requirements for the military academies and for the pilot training programs, and therefore the NASA requirements too. So…not only was the astronaut corps and space flight out of the picture, I could not even qualify for flight training. My vision was too badly impaired to even qualify for the military academies. Only West Point allowed less than 20/20 vision, and they limited vision impairment to 20/40, correctable to 20/20, of course. I was 20/100 in one eye and 20/200 in the other! I couldn’t even see the chalk board from the back of the classroom, which is where I sat, because I did not want to be called upon, because I couldn’t see what the teacher had written on the board.
I often wonder how my life would have been different had I discovered the vision impairment a couple of years earlier, before I was a teenager with “attitude.” I can tell you that my “attitude” got even worse after my BIG ASTRONAUT career plans were destroyed.
By the way, vision requirements are much different today, and were I a youngster today, I would still be able to live my dreams.
Tomorrow: Why Didn’t I ever jump out of an airplane?
Yesterday: Why Didn’t I Marry my First Love?
I was in university when it was discovered that I had a learning disability that was keeping me from achieving the required marks to get into the honors program. I often wonder the same thing! Right up til second year I was fixed on getting into the space program!
Glad to see I’m not the only one who seriously dreamed of this!
….But wasn’t it exciting to be able to see? I got glasses in my second year of university. I came home after that first day of wearing glasses, yelling to my mum ” Julie, (my best friend) has freckles on her nose!!!!” My mother almost collapsed with laughter.
I had known this girl for 5 years, and had never seen her freckles.
I wanted to go into the Army but I had a too much greater love for Music so either way I had to choose one over the other. I wanted to be Super women but it didn’t work out that way for me. Now I just feel like a stuffed over worked chicken lol.
Vision requirements for astronauts are quite different today than fifty years ago. Also, mission specialists are often not pilots at all, but engineers, chemists and other specialists.