This Saturday, Chevrolet Celebrates Corvettes & Astronauts

By Richard Read

Richard Read

Reporter BIO

Richard Read is a car writer, covering marketing, technology, social media, and other auto industry topics for High Gear Media. With a background in... More

LATEST ARTICLE
Natalie Wood's Mercedes-Benz 300SL Heads To Amelia Island
Movie buffs traveling to this year's Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance will be in for a pleasant... Read More

• #9LEADERBOARD RANK
• 2435ARTICLES CONTRIBUTED
• 342COMMENTS POSTED

3,958 views May 6, 2011

Follow Richard

Add to circle

Astronaut Alan Shepard (center) with GM reps and his 1962 Corvette

Enlarge Photo

Most of the past week's headlines have been dominated by news about disastrous storms in the Deep South, flooding in the Midwest, and of course, the death of Osama bin Laden. But in the middle of all that, there's another important story that's been overlooked by many media outlets: yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of America's first manned space flight. And shortly after Alan B. Shepard hurtled back to Earth, GM handed him the keys to a custom 1962 Chevrolet Corvette.

The association between astronauts and Corvettes stuck -- though that's mostly because of a clever dealer, not because GM was trying to win over influencers like astronauts. The dealer was Jim Rathmann, who opened a Chevrolet-Cadillac outlet in Melbourne, Florida after winning the Indy 500 in 1960. Being a performance nut himself, Rathmann had a hunch that the astronauts at the nearby Space Center were, too -- after all, they clearly liked speed, danger, and adventure.

Rathmann worked out a special arrangement with Chevrolet to put astronauts behind the wheels of Corvettes, and six of the men accepted his offer. (John Glenn was the notable exception, preferring instead a Chevy station wagon.) Photos in LIFE magazine and elsewhere helped cement the association between Corvette and space travel, and it's hung around ever since.

Tomorrow, on May 7, around 30 NASA astronauts will get together in Cocoa Beach, Florida to celebrate 50 years of manned space travel. The highlight of the event will be a parade, in which the astronauts will be driven in Corvettes spanning all six design generations that the sportscar has seen since its launch nearly 60 years ago. 

For more details about the event, check out the press release below. And science buffs, if you're in the area, be sure to send us photos -- it looks like it's going to be a picture-perfect day.

* * * * *

Commemorating 50 Years of Corvettes and Astronauts 

DETROIT – On May 5, 1961, Alan B. Shepard became the first American to travel into outer space. When he returned to terra firma, Shepard got behind the wheel of a Chevrolet Corvette – and the legends of America’s favorite sports car and spacemen have been intertwined ever since.

On May 7, 2011, approximately 30 of America’s surviving astronauts are expected to gather at Cocoa Beach, Fla., where they will participate in a parade commemorating the 50^th anniversary of Shepard’s historic sub-orbital flight. Fittingly, they will be driven in Corvettes representing all six design generations built since the famed sports car’s 1953 debut.

“Each astronaut will ride in a Corvette from the generation current at the time of their mission,” parade coordinator John T. R. Dillon III said.

Dillon, a Safety Engineer at the Kennedy Space Center, is also a Corvette owner and member of the Cape Kennedy Corvette Club, which counted four astronauts among its original membership when it was founded in 1967.

“All of the astronauts were test pilots back then; they flew performance aircraft and they moved into performance cars with a well-honed appreciation for handling, acceleration and so forth," Dillon said.

Shepard brought along his 1957 Corvette when he reported for Space Program training in April, 1959. He would own at least 10 Corvettes in his lifetime. His enthusiasm for sports cars was shared by several of the other adventurous and dedicated young men who would train with him to become America’s first astronauts.