Rocket Science...

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, when I was young. Very young to be exact, my father was a "rocket scientists."  As a matter of fact, he was one of the principle designers of space suits and life support systems, first for the US Air Force, then, after he retired for NASA.  He was a principle designer of the back-pack system you'll see below in the video of the Moon landing. 

When I was a kid in Connecticut, at the start of the school year, when kids would have to stand up and introduce themselves, we never had to say what our parents did.  Mostly because far too many kids would answer "I don't know, daddy's not allowed to tell us..."  But, as a "reward" astronauts would come around to the schools in the late '60's and early '70's after the viel of secrecy was raised, and kids would get to "show them off" at "show and tell".  I got to take Gene Cernan in 2nd grade.  I still have autographed photographs of ALL of the Mecury, Gemini and Apollo astronuats.

If you ever go to the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, make sure that you go into the little room, next to the "rocket room" where all the missles and rockets are...you'll see 2, nearly life-size cutouts of my old man...in space suits he designed in the 1950's and very early 1960's.