I remember as a small child being out in my parent's yard in Limestone County hearing and feeling the rumble of the main F1 engines for the Saturn V being tested 20 miles away by NASA on Redstone Arsenal. Redstone Arsenal is a major Army command and has been home of the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center for many years. I have been privileged over the years to see and meet astronauts, military officers and enlisted personnel, and members of the original Saturn V rocket team. In addition, Huntsville is the location of the U.S. Space and Rocket Center which has the largest collection of space artifacts in the world.
On the last day that I worked at the U,S. Space and Rocket Center, I was in the newly restored Skylab module with several Skylab astronauts who were remembering events during missions and telling jokes about things that had happened. The Skylab astronauts and all the other astronauts that I met are true Officers and Gentlemen.
The images of the refueling flight were the result of an invitation to fly with the 117th Air Refueling Wing out of Birmingham, Alabama. The KC-135, wiith Colonel Berryhill as our pilot, took off toward the Gulf of Mexico to rendezvous with 4 F-15 jets. It was a fabulous experience to see fighter jets through the small window (2 feet by 3 feet) out the back of the KC-135. We were able to move freely about the cockpit, cabin and boom section of the aircraft. My friend asked if we should be buckled in case of an accident. The reply was "Why? We are flying with 200,000 pounds of jet fuel." The other thing that struck me is that the first numbers of the KC-135 serial number was 57. I was born in 1957 and the plane was made in 1957 meaning that we had just had our 53rd birthday.
