posted 09-28-2005 08:07 AM               

As Al Shepard was preparing for his Freedom-7 mission in the spring of 1961, he received a photo from Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, who were filming “Road to HongKong” in London. The photo showed the two entertainers dressed in fake spacesuits and had the following inscription: ”To Shepard & Grissom: We’re ready! Bing & Bob”.
In return Shepard and his backup Gus Grissom had this photo made and sent it to London with the inscription: “To Crosby & Hope: We’re ready too! Shepard & Grissom”.

posted 09-28-2005 10:22 AM               

Imagine those two pics framed next to each other !

posted 09-28-2005 11:20 AM               

These photos just get better and better!

posted 09-28-2005 06:05 PM               

Going by the G in Grissom I'd say Gus signed the astro's one as well.

posted 09-30-2005 10:15 PM            

These are great photos. I saw the Hope and Crosby film not so long ago, and it was a typical "On the Road" movie, but the rocket scene made it more interesting. In the movie, they put on spacesuits tailored for large monkeys to escape from the bad guys, and were accidentally launched into space.

But I wish there were dates on those photos. As I recall, no one officially knew Shepard was "it" until May 2, 1961, when his name was announced at the same time as his first launch attempt was scrubbed. Up until then, it was officially Glenn-Grissom-Shepard all as candidates for the first mission, although the simulator technicians supposedly guess it was to be Shepard because he was spending the most time in the simulators.

So how did Hope and Crosby know ro send the photo to Shepard and grissom before May 2, unless they were hanging around the sims?

And why Grissom instead of Glenn, who was officially the backup to both Shepard and Grissom. This makes me think that the actual exchange of photos took place after Grissom's flight in July 1961 but before Glenn was named in Nov. 1961.

Anyone have more info?

By the way, I Googled the movie and the best info I could find (www.eofftv.com) was that it was released on April 27, 1962, in Finland, on May 22 in the USA and on May 28 in Sweden.

posted 10-01-2005 03:17 AM               

Because the film was released in 1962 it would now be more logical to assume that the photo was sent by Hope/Crosby after the Shepard and Grissom flights, somewhere in the second half of 1961.

posted 10-01-2005 01:23 PM            

Thanks for the tip! According to my handy-dandy directory of Life magazine articles on space-related topics (compiled by Glen Swanson a few years ago), that was the issue for Friday, Nov. 10, 1961. Mystery solved!

Still, if they were published in Life with the inscriptions already on them, then they must have been exchanged earlier than that--sometime between July and early Nov. 1961.

Unless someone finds the originals and they have a date on them, that may be as close as we can get.

posted 01-10-2006 09:07 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by heng44:
Thanks for that date, John. I had been wondering about that. It all makes sense now.
Ed

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Epilogue: In reviewing some old notes, I "re-discovered" that the Shepard-Grissom/Hope-Crosby photo exchange was documented in the Wednesday, Nov. 1, 1961, issue of Space News Round-Up, the weekly on-site newspaper of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center. The photo was captioned, “Al and Gus and Bing and Bob Swap Suits.”