Ted,
I know many people on the BB in-person and I have no reason on earth to lie or misrepresent events about anyone. Especially a world-renowned individual, for goodness sake. You can doubt all you want but this is the truth and it was not just me that this happened to, this happened to others that we knew, my sister included!
I learned many, many years later, from a retired NASA veteran that this was probably because they had issues with collectors sending in sets of pictures, which were very likely being sent in and signed for the sole purpose of being sold in the future. I do not know why mine was treated this way, mine was sent individually.
I'll do everyone a favor, grab my box from storage and post up the letter for posterity.
Joe
On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 8:31 PM, Ted [email protected] wrote:
Based on the following link, I have serious doubt regarding your allegation
Just sayin'
73 K7TRK
http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum6/HTML/002059.html
-----Original Message----- From: AMSAT-BB [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Joseph Armbruster Sent: Thursday, December 8, 2016 4:56 PM To: Alan Biddle Cc: Amsat BB Subject: Re: [amsat-bb] God speed, John Glenn
I am a child of the 80s, was born in 81 and I use to watch all of the launches I could on TV. I was in south Florida and I remember staring up at the sky hoping to catch any glimpse of a launch. Mom worked days and nights and we didn't travel much at all, so it was near impossible for us to drive up and watch a launch. Back then, you use to be able to send a snail-mail letter to nasa and request the STS-* launch photos (and others). I did this for everyone that I could and started requesting some of the older ones to fill up my notebook. This was a huge deal for me back then and it took a lot of work and time to do, it cost me all of my allowance at the time because of all the envelopes and stamps. Once you received the photos, you could send them back to different addresses to request a signature of a given astronaut in the picture. This was a lot more work, you had to figure out which place to send the photo to for a given astronaut, hope they were there to sign it, wait... wait...... wait... and one day voila, a manila envelope would appear in the mail. I remember, there was nothing more exciting than getting a NASA envelope in the mail, you have no clue, this was the ultimate excitement! We all use to gather around and see who it was from, I use to idolize these astronauts...
And then one day, I received a letter from John Glenn, indicating that he would not sign a photo unless I sent him a check. I will Never forget this day. I showed this to my family and they could not believe it. I think my mom even called or wrote a letter to NASA and complained about it but I may be wrong (going to call and ask her about it tonight). Of the dozens of astronaut clips and photos that I have, he was the only astronaut that demanded a check for his autograph and it left a really bad scar on me. Maybe it's silly but I really felt betrayed as a kid.
Oh well, Bygons.
Joe
On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 4:54 PM, Alan [email protected] wrote:
John Glenn passed away today at 95.
73s,
Alan WA4SCA
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Sent via [email protected]. AMSAT-NA makes this open forum available to all interested persons worldwide without requiring membership. Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and do not reflect the official views of AMSAT-NA. Not an AMSAT-NA member? Join now to support the amateur satellite program! Subscription settings: http://www.amsat.org/mailman/listinfo/amsat-bb