SPACE...THE NEW FRONTIER

I read in the paper that Thomas J. O’Malley died last week at age 94. I could ask 1000 people who Thomas J. O’Malley was, and probably 999 of them wouldn’t know, maybe all 1000.

On the morning of February 20, 1962, Mr. O’Malley pressed the button that fired the Atlas booster rockets and sent John Glenn on his way to becoming the first American to orbit the Earth.

Tape recordings caught Mr. O’Malley’s words at that moment: “May the good Lord ride all the way.”

Memorabilia from the early days of the space age surrounded Mr. O’Malley at his home in Cocoa Beach, not far from the launching pads. Mounted on a piece of varnished wood was the black starter button from the 1962 Glenn flight.

At Cape Canaveral, a plaque bolted to the base of a streetlight on the road leading to Pad 14, the site of the Glenn launching, reads, “O’Malley’s Guiding Light.”

In the fall of 1962, I started 3rd grade. I somehow had coaxed someone into buying me a model spaceship and astronauts in their spacesuits. I took it to school one day, mainly to show off to my classmates, and my teacher Mrs. Snider set it on a table for display for a week.

Space travel was in its’ infancy. Children, and adults, were fascinated by the prospects of what might happen and what we might discover. Anytime there was another launch of a rocket carrying an astronaut, it had our attention over the radio or TV. It ‘was’ the news.

Today, few even pay attention to men and women in space. We’ve gotten bored with the thought of it and have found other things to keep our attention.

But in those early years of space flight, particularly to that 3rd grader, it was fascinating.


Dan