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In reply to the discussion: Did you see Man walk on the Moon 50 years ago? [View all]hunter
(38,327 posts)My grandfather was an Apollo Project engineer. Bits of metal he made, metals and machining that were considered exotic and even "impossible" at the time, took men to the moon and back.
He joined the Army Air Corp before World War II. Previously he'd run off to the "big city" of Cheyenne Wyoming as a teen and discovered it wasn't all it was cracked up to be. He figured the Army would put him in a airplane and he'd make the girls swoon but it didn't turn out that way. He was an autistic spectrum klutz who could barely ride a bicycle. I saw him ride a bicycle once and it was terrifying. My grandpa is going to die...
The Army kept him mostly on the ground.
He acquired a knack for exotic metals during World War II but he never talked about that. Defeating Germany and Japan was a dirty job that had to be done. I suspect he did some very dirty stuff examining Nazi and Japanese Empire technology.
When the Air Force became the "third leg" of the military triad my grandfather and anyone else considered eccentric were discarded. My grandfather was highly eccentric. During the war he'd been a handsome officer who had a driver and a fancy car who carried a "get out of jail free" card for people more brilliantly eccentric than he was.
Sputnik changed everything for him.
His mad skills were needed again.