What was the first space-related thing you did?

[Andy44]

My dad was involved in aviation and I have always been interested in aviation and spaceflight. I watched Star Trek reruns and every other sci fi show I could find growing up, had books about airplanes and spaceships, built flying model airplanes and tried to build a model rocket (couldn't get a motor because of the cryptofascist state I grew up in which made them almost impossible for young boys to get). I remember having a book with the X-15 and the X-20 Dynasoar in it and gazing endlessly at it. I always wanted my very own hypersonic rocketship.

 

[Eccentrus]

Reading an encyclopaedia about the planets

 

[andysim]

a friend of mine was mad about model rockets and it went from there.

We spent 4 hours one cold winters day looking for the second stage of a 2 stage rocket he launched.

Never did find it lol.:lol:

 

[jinglesassy]

a friend of mine was mad about model rockets and it went from there.

We spent 4 hours one cold winters day looking for the second stage of a 2 stage rocket he launched.

Never did find it lol.:lol:

should of put a gps tracking chip on it

 

[Cerebus]

My earliest lasting memory of anything Space related is probably watching the Apollo 11 coverage on TV, closely followed staying off school to follow the unfolding events of the Apollo 13 mission.

My eighth year ( june 1969 - june 1970), was probably the biggest influence on my enduring interest in space exploration.

 

[runamok]

Excluding daydreams, games and television shows. I made a pc program to simulate the attraction beetween two generic planets, setting the mass and the start velocity vector. It was only 2D, but i was funny, for a while.

 

[Andy44]

Atari used to make a game for the 2600 console called "Space War". It was a simple 2D game in which two spacecraft, similar to the one in Asteroids, squared off against each other on the TV screen. You had three controls, rotate left, rotate right, thrust, and shoot.

One variant of the game had a dot in the middle of the screen which represented a star, and its gravity would pull you towards it. I played around for a while and figured out that I could insert myself into a stable orbit around it. Now I could stop wasting fuel and blast my opponent (usually my brother) while he flailed about trying not to fall into the star.

I was destined to fly Orbiter.

 

[n72.75]

Getting space related books from the library when I was young was the first thing that I did; but Orbiter has been certainly the most influential.

Now I'm an aeronautical engenering major at Clarkson University, and an AIAA member.

 

[Pablo49]

In first grade we all got to take turns dressing up as astronauts and got our pictures taken. I assume I had thought of space before then, but that was the first time I really got interested.

 

[Deltafang]

Don't laugh, but the I still remember getting a toy Space Shuttle for Christmas when I was around 5 or 6. It was my favorite thing ever. I played with it day and night for years. I recently found it again while cleaning my attic . I'm so glad I'm still interested in our great universe and all that's out there some 13 years later.

 

[Arrowstar]

Atari used to make a game for the 2600 console called "Space War". It was a simple 2D game in which two spacecraft, similar to the one in Asteroids, squared off against each other on the TV screen. You had three controls, rotate left, rotate right, thrust, and shoot.

One variant of the game had a dot in the middle of the screen which represented a star, and its gravity would pull you towards it. I played around for a while and figured out that I could insert myself into a stable orbit around it. Now I could stop wasting fuel and blast my opponent (usually my brother) while he flailed about trying not to fall into the star.

I was destined to fly Orbiter.

My brother and I used to play the same game! A simple but fantastic little diversion, that.

My first interest probably manifest itself after seeing the movie Apollo 13, but I'm pretty sure the interest has always been there somehow. My dad and I used to play a flight simulator game called A-10 Tank Killer when I was real young, which is also probably where a basic interest in flight came from.

 

[Shadow Addict]

My first experience with space was going to some space exhibit, seeing Apollo 13 and getting a toy where you could dock the CSM and LM, as well as seperating the CM and SM and the ascent and descent stages. I had no interest in space at all until last February, when I was looking for freeware games to pass the time and Orbiter's name was on the Wikipedia article. Soon after I found Orbiter, I watched STS-119 liftoff and that really hooked me.

 

[Kyle]

Watching STS-83 launch in '97 from Titusville.

 

[n72.75]

My dad and I used to play a flight simulator game called A-10 Tank Killer when I was real young, which is also probably where a basic interest in flight came from.

My dad and I used to play Tank killer as well what a coincidence.

 

[Andy44]

I still have that A-10 game on a 3.5" floppy somewhere. No computer to run it on, though.

 

[fresh squid]

Had to be Erin Grey..

 

[Andy44]

Ah, Colonel Wilma Deering, how I loved watching that show because of her. I always wondered what was taking Buck so long, the guy was all over the alien girls but Wilma was the brass ring...

ETA: just looked her up on imdb, she's 60 years old, now. I feel so old....

 

[tblaxland]

I've always been interested in machines of all kinds so my interest in spaceflight was an extension of that. I think the event that really got me hooked on space was when I received a copy of Rendezvous with Rama in my late teens.

 

[ex-orbinaut]

http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEgoogle/SEgoogle1951/SE1973Jun30Tgoogle.html

My interest in the heavens was started by watching this event from Bishoftu, Ethiopia. I was five and remember it clearly.

 

[Pablo49]

I also remembered that when I was younger, I went to an Air Force M<useum in Dayton, and they had the Apollo 15 Capsule and an not flown Mercury Capsule (If I remember correctly)