Commemorating 50 years of Corvettes and Astronauts

After becoming the first American to travel into space Alan Shepard climbed into a Chevrolet Corvette.

‘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 50th 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 explains that all of the Astronauts were test pilots previously and appreciated the performance cars for their handling and acceleration. In particular Alan Shepard who owned 10 Corvettes in his life time. After his becoming the first American to go into space General Motors presented him with a new, white, 1962 Corvette.
This link was further strengthened by 1960 Indianapolis 500 winner Jim Rathman opened a Chevrolet-Cadillac dealership near the Space Centre. He saw the opportunity to put the Astronauts in Corvettes and 6 of the Mercury Astronauts took him up on his offer.

Shepard and fellow astronaut Virgil ‘Gus’ Grissom felt the need to compare the performance of their Corvettes, with their blacktop duels becoming stuff of legend. In his quest for a competitive edge Grissom even had his last Corvette specially geared and modified to accept extra wide racing tires.

The Apollo 12 Astronauts ordered identical 1969 427 Stingray coupes, custom finished in special black-accented Riverside Gold with a unique red, white and blue insignia on the front fenders. When Dick Gordon, Charles Conrad and Alan Bean were featured with their Corvettes in Life magazine NASA fretted that it would be construed as a forbidden product endorsement.

Despite this the stunt was repeated in 1971 by the Apollo 15 Astronauts along with the battery powered Lunar Rover Vehicle. The Corvettes were this time different colors – red, white and blue, dual racing stripes finished off the effect of the American Flag colors.

"In the 1960s, astronauts were the American heroes that every child idolized and every adult respected,” said Corvette historian and former Corvette Quarterly editor Jerry Burton. “That so many of them drove Corvettes really helped to establish Corvette as America's sports car.”

Today the Corvette is still linked to America’s astronauts through films such as Apollo 13 and Star Trek XI. Tom Hanks drives an era-authentic Corvette in Apollo 13 and James Kirk drives a 1965 Sting Ray Corvette in Star Trek.