Being something of a space nut, one of my standard daydreams is to fantasize about which astronaut’s career I would most like to re-live.
Some would immediately say Neil Armstrong, but he’s pretty far down my list. He only made two spaceflights, one of which was very brief and nearly ended badly. And he only walked on the moon for a couple of hours. Historical, but too much of a rush for me to enjoy.
My top three are:
Pete Conrad because he flew on Gemini twice, landed on the moon during Apollo, and did EVA’s (spacewalks) on a month-long visit to Skylab. That’s a well-rounded space career.
Dave Scott did an EVA on Apollo 9 (standing in the hatch, but close enough), flew the command module solo, and landed at the best lunar site visited during Apollo, Hadley Rille. Also got to drive the rover.
John Young flew twice on Gemini, flew to the moon TWICE during Apollo, and commanded the first shuttle mission. But besides his moonwalks, he never went EVA, so he comes in third.
Anybody else waste their free moments in similar fantasy?