AHOF induction weekend

So, didja go to the Astronaut Hall of Fame induction weekend?

No? You missed out on a great autograph opportunity!

This year's inductees were Shuttle mission specialists Michael Foale and Ellen Ochoa - neither of whom I had met (although Ochoa signed my "Space Shuttle: The First 20 Years" book) - and both were scheduled signers!

To put things into perspective, in 2015 the inductees were John Grunsfeld, Steve Lindsey, Kent Rominger and Rhea Seddon. Yet, of those listed, only Seddon was signing - and a book signing, at that. (Not to knock the other astronauts, but the ones autographing that weekend were Dick Covey, Bob Crippen, Frank Culbertson, and Al Worden.)

It was, as a friend put it, very nice of Foale and Ochoa to do a signing.

As the commercial says, "But wait! There's more!" Also signing this year were Brian Duffy (last time we met was at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, October 2003), Loren Shriver (whom I met at the Hubble 25 commemoration in April 2015), and Jim Wetherbee (previously met in May 2013 at a leadership forum in New York City.)

As well, the Astronaut Encounter space traveler was John Blaha. (Side note: Norm Thagard was the Encounter astronaut earlier that week. Unfortunately, no one I knew was going to be there then, otherwise I would have gotten my Mir photo additionally signed by three U.S. astronauts who stayed there: Thagard, Blaha, and Foale!

Mir as seen during the STS-63/Discovery mission. I added U.S. residents John Blaha and Mike Foale to the photo.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What was nice this visit to the Kennedy Space Center was the Disney-esque PhotoPass, run by Picsolve. Have a picture taken by a KSCVC photographer, have your band scanned, and all your photos are in one place.

When I saw a photog near the NASA logo ball, I figured, "Why not." That's the top photo. And the photographer also took pictures during the autograph signings (but not at the Encounter signings, although I did Tweet them that they should.)

First up were the signings by Shriver, Ochoa, and Wetherbee, in that order. I was about a dozen people from the front of the line, which gave me time to order the stuff I wanted signed. (The night before, I placed pieces of paper between the pages I wanted signed in the "Shuttle: 20 Years" book.)

For some reason, I'm fuzzy on this point but I believe the limit was four items per person per astronaut (!) Although I brought extra items for all the astronauts who were listed as attending (but not necessarily) signing that weekend, including a cover depicting the STS-31R crew patch - a mission on which Shriver was the pilot - I limited myself to two items per astronaut, with the exception of Foale.

I thanked Shriver for signing at the Hubble 25 commemoration as well as now, and handed him a photo as well as a cockpit diagram gatefold from a Shuttle Training Aircraft training manual.

That diagram has become my catchall for Shuttle pilots and commanders to sign. I forgot to get Scott Altman's autograph on it when I saw him at Space Congress last year, but added Shriver and three other pilots/commanders - Wetherbee, Duffy, and Blaha.

For those keeping track, Ochoa was the No. 171 astronaut I've met - defined by some sort of conversation between myself and that person.

Ochoa, a four-time Shuttle mission specialist (STS-56/Discovery, 66/Atlantis, 96/Discovery,  and 110/Atlantis), is the second female director of the Johnson Space Center, and that facility's first Hispanic director (as well as the first Hispanic female astronaut.) I asked Ochoa if, with the change in presidential administrations, if she would remain as JSC director, and Ochoa replied she would.

I've met Wetherbee three times now - all in the month of May! At my first encounter, May 2006 in Princeton, NJ, he either wasn't signing or didn't have time to. Seven years later to the day I caught Wetherbee at the end of his presentation at a leadership conference. He used his own Sharpie, asking if he should personalize the photo I brought, and added his missions unasked.

Wetherbee is the only astronaut to command five Shuttle flights. Unless you had prior experience, you had to start as a pilot (which he did), and there are very few U.S. astronauts to have flown six missions as Wetherbee has done.

Among his flights was STS-63/Discovery, the "near-Mir" mission. This was a flight to check out the rendezvous and navigation procedures with the Russian space station, and included a close approach to within 10 meters from Mir's docking port.

The pilot of STS-63, Eileen Collins - this was the first flight of a female NASA astronaut in the right-hand seat - wrote an essay about that mission in the "Shuttle: 20 Years" book. I asked Wetherbee to sign that page, and he added unasked, "Eileen was awesome!"

That done, it was time for lunch before queuing up for the last two scheduled astronauts, Duffy and Foale. This go-around, perhaps in the interest of time - Shriver, Ochoa, and Wetherbee were still signing close to two hours later, the handlers said that Duffy and Foale would not be personalizing, and that there would be a limit of two items per astronaut - although one could (and myself and others did) queue again.

Brian Duffy then ....

In 2003, I interviewed Duffy for British Interplanetary Society's "Spaceflight" magazine when he made his appearance at the Franklin Instiute.

Duffy had recently retired from NASA, going to work for Lockheed Martin. During 2003, Lockheed brought Duffy and at least two other astronauts - Dan Brandenstein, whom I missed, and Rick Hieb, whom I also interviewed for "Spaceflight" - to the Franklin Institute.

... And Brian Duffy (and myself) now.

C. Michael Foale had long been on my bucket list of astronaut autographs. He does few appearances here in the States, and frequently does presentations in England, where he's originally from. He was the No. 172 astronaut I've met.

In addition to "Shuttle: 20 Years," and the Mir photo above, Foale completed an STS-63 photo which I had previously signed by Bernard Harris.

Years ago, a co-worker gave me a bunch of lithos and photos, including this one. I don't know why, but I wasn't too keen on the image, but it grew on me the more I looked at it. The same photo appears in Harris' autobiography, "Dream Walker: A Journey of Achievement and Inspiration."

Blaha was the last astronaut of the day - I don't remember the last time I met half a dozen space travelers in one place, perhaps at the Hubble 25 Years commemoration.

I've attended previous Astronaut Encounters, and to the best of my recollection, it was a maximum of one personal item, plus however many photos (at $9.99 each) one wished to purchase, which they would sign.

Those photos, however, tended to be the standard portrait shots, either in their flightsuit, jacket and trousers, or spacesuit. They're OK, I suppose, but I prefer action or candid shots.

This time, though, it was a maximum of three personal items. In addition to a copy of "Shuttle: 20 Years," the Mir photo seen above (interestingly, neither Foale nor Blaha opted or asked for a silver or gold marker to sign it, choosing instead to fit their signature on the available space on the Earth), I had a really neat item signed by Blaha, who was the No. 173 astronaut I've met:

This is the cover for the Mission 61H Flight Data File. Scheduled for launch June 24, 1986 on Shuttle Columbia, 61H would have seen the deployment of three satellites - two of them commercial (Palapa B3 for Indonesia and Westar 6S) and Skynet 4A, a military satellite, for Great Britain - and the flight of Material Science Lab-4.

Crew would have been Michael Coats, commander (and who was at Kennedy Space Center the day of the Foale and Ochoa's induction but not the gala dinner); Blaha as pilot, and mission specialists Anna Lee Fisher (who signed this June 4, 2016 at an event in Brooklyn Bridge Park, NY), James Buchli and Robert Springer, as well as payload specialists Nigel Wood of Great Britain and Pratiwi Sudarmono of Indonesia - the first astronauts from those countries.

The Challenger accident in January 1986 postponed or canceled many flights. A law against flying commercial satellites on Shuttle meant Wood and Sudarmono would ultimately never fly, although both the Russians and U.S. experessed interest in flying Sudarmono, who among other scientific backgrounds was a microbiologist.

If you went, how did you do with the autographing sessions that weekend?