The FURSE was one of the original ships the could track the satellites, therefore we were sent out as primary recovery for the first space shots... The Mercury Project...

Date:   10/26/2005 2:26:09 PM ( 19 y ago)

USS Furse returning from an open sea assignment...

This will be an account of the happening during this historic series of events...  We were stationed out of Charleston SC...  All of the original Space shots were set down in the Atlantic Ocean...  It was later transfered to the Pacific Ocean...   

BTW this was what was happening at the time of the movie ... "The Right Stuff"    You know John Glen, Scott Carpenter, and the other guys in the original seven astronauts program....

We would Head for Bermuda, ya I know poor guys,  but someone had to do it...  It was in Hamilton Bay Bermuda that I first saw wind surfing..  Not Hawaii... HUH!! 

We would refuel and go out to our duty station some times up off Scotland...  The problem on the first space shots is there was not any Houston Space Center, {LBJ was just the Vice President then} everything was ran from the beach at Cape Canaveral..   It was a see as we go operation...    Therefore we would be waiting for weeks on station, for the launch...  BORING...  But someone had to do it...  

So while those of you who remember the first space shots, listening on the Radio, or TV... We were out on the high seas waiting, and waiting, it took several weeks before the second launch and then for a few minutes tracking the space craft, as it circled the earth...  We were on station for most all of the first  seven launches....  This was an exciting part of history to have lived through.... 

Actually John Glen was picked up by the destroyer USS Noa out of Jax FL....  We tied up beside this ship, later at Mayport Naval Station...  Most of the Astronauts were picked up by Helo, and transfered to one of the Navy Aircraft Carriers...   And so it was as the United States and the world went into the space age...  

And I was there, as part of the NASA prime recovery team....  History in the making!!

Will get back soon with the exciting details, and some more fun stuff...  see ya soon .. K

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