Gathering of Eagles - Salute to the Space Shuttle

Picture of the Day for 10/14/2011. I attended the Gathering of Eagles - Salute to the Space Shuttle banquet (held in Lancaster, California near the Edwards Air Force Base) hosted by the Flight Test Historical Foundation. Instead of describing the entire event, I'll mention a few highlights. I'm most pleased with the picture above since it was one I was determined to get- me with Nichelle Nichols, the actress who played Uhura in the original Star Trek television series. I managed to catch up with her at the end of the evening right before she was about to depart. Nichols was a special guest and spoke about how NASA asked for her help in recruiting astronaut candidates who were female and/or minorities in order to bring diversity to the astronaut pool.


I also managed to snag a picture of myself with Lee Archambault, a shuttle astronaut who was another featured speaker.


I think I've mentioned in previous blog entries that one of my quirky little joys in life is sitting down at a banquet table full of complete strangers. Like Forrest Gump says, you never know what you're going to get. I ended up sitting at table 37 and I was the only one who was actually supposed to be there. The other people were supposed to be seated at table 35. The problem is, there was no table 35 which they realized only after a long period of searching the banquet hall in vain. One of the organizers of the event just had them sit at my table which turned out to be a happy accident since they were all fascinating people. I sat next to the curator of the Intrepid museum in New York which will be the future home of the shuttle Enterprise. His wife is a professional photographer and had a lot of interesting stories to tell about her career. The man sitting across from me excavates crash sites of test planes that have gone down in the vicinity of Edwards Air Force Base.


Dessert was a solid chocolate space shuttle. Very cute.


There were interesting displays and artifacts on the perimeter of the banquet hall.


There was a large crowd in attendance at this event. Although by the end of the very looooong event (four hours), the crowd had thinned out considerably. I was the only one who stuck it out to the very end at my table. Pictured below is my deserted table.