We begin today in the us senate. Where the traditional we begin today in the us senate. Where the traditional decorum is breaking down over the vacant at the center of the war of words is iowa senator and Judiciary Committee chair charles grassley. In that role, grassley is the gatekeeper of judicial nominees. Yesterday grassley released a letter stating he will not hold hearings on anyone nominated by president obama to fill the seat left empty by antonin scalias death. That announcement was followed by a report that grassley is ignoring an invitation to come to the white house to discuss the matter with president obama. Senate minority leader harry reid responded to the news in a ten minute speech today on the floor of the senate. Focusing entirely on grassley. According to politico reid said quote senator grassley has surrendered every pretense of independence. This is a sad day for one of the proudest committees in the United States senate. we dont have to go back to 1980 or 1982 t
In october. This is almost 50 minutes. Thank you for coming out so early. We have a big program today. And we are very honored to have with us well, to start, and i think this is great chronologically, apollo seven astronaut walt cunningham. We will get into some questions, but will was on the apollo seven flight, which was really make or break for the apollo like program. They sent some unmanned ones up and they had the terrible fire on apollo 1. These guys made it happen. We had many legends on, but this is one of the greatest. Lets hear it for walt cunningham. [applause] that is a pretty good welcome. I keep hearing im going to call him glenn cunningham, the old quarterback. Im terrible with names. This is a great story. I want you to explain it. Evidently, number 13 and 14 had a lot to do with your career. Talk about it. Well, actually, like a lot of people, you learn things later that you did not know whether it was critical. But it must have been about 10 years ago, i get an emai
Fear from time to time and back in those days i think i was too stupid to be afraid. There is an attitudinal thing. I am not a psychologist, i read about a lot of that stuff. I think there is a difference in mentality about how people feel about these things. Recognizing it, being aware of it intellectually, is an important step. I think a lot of people are afraid of things because they do not have the faintest idea what is going to go on. So they are afraid of it. And those that learn about things, they may be afraid of it because of what they know. And then there is some kind of a mental quirk that a lot of my friends and people out there today are aware of. Brian, i know that he was aware of the things that could go wrong. And you have to have the kind of selfconfidence that enables you to handle that. That selfconfidence comes from the way you have lived. You faced a lot of lesser things along the way. And you have been able to overcome them. I am afraid we have a society that has
Died, i get an email from paul. He says just one sentence. I read the book. It is really good. I sent an email back. Paul, i gave you that book in 1977. And you are just reading it . He said, i went to the index and checked what you said about me. [laughter] very typical. He had one more sentence. He said, you know you are number 14, dont you . You are like, what does that mean . That is right. In our group, we were the third group of astronauts. They had 7, 9, and 14. Im only one of the group of 30 that knew where he stood on the selection process. No one ever made it public or anything at all like that. So i got on the phone and called and asked them. He told me. The day that they were announcing this they had a press conference. A week before that, deke slayton, who was in charge of the astronauts, arranged a meeting with the head of the space center. So paul haney was going to be there. Paul was on the phone when he started this meeting. So he did not get there when they started. W
October 14, 1963. They were announcing us at a press conference. And a week before that, dick arranged a meeting with the head of Johnson Space center and all the directors and different people. So paul was going to be there. Paul was on the phone when he started this meaning, and so he didnt get there when they started it. When he finally got off the call he was telling me he went down there and he went in. He had just finished naming and giving a little brief background of all the people that were selected. The head of engineering i have a name problem, too anyhow, he was the guy who designed the spacecraft. He was the best technical guy we had their. As paul walked in, he raised his hand and said, hey, you cant do that. He says, why . He says, that is 13. Meaning they chose 13 astronauts . Yes. I couldnt believe that the technical guy was being superstitious about 13. And he says, well, whoever is number 13 i really want this guy. So if i have to take another one, then he laid my br