By
STEPHEN McGUIRE
When a one-time Queens resident boldly went where no tourist has gone
before this week, a star was born and the borough turned another page in its extensive
history of blazing trails through the final frontier.
A long time ago in a galaxy close to home there was a
young boy living in Queens who dreamed of going on a trip into space.
When Dennis Tito grew up, that dream came true.
The centerpiece of the 1964-65 World’s Fair, the
rings that surround the Unisphere pay tribute to man’s quest to enter space.
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Tito who reached for the stars as a
boy made it there aboard a Russian space capsule this week.
"I love space," Tito said from
aboard the International Space Station on April 30.
"It is so spectacular, it is so
rewarding," he said.
Tito, a millionaire investment fund
manager, became the first space tourist when the Soyuz spacecraft carrying the former
Queens resident and two Russian cosmonauts docked at an out-of this world vacation
destination after a two-day journey that began on a Russian launch pad on April 28.
The price tag for the trip – $20
million paid the cash strapped Russian space program.
"Unfortunately, it’s very
expensive at this point. But there are others who can afford it and I would like to
encourage it . . . It’s time for me to help other people achieve their dreams,"
Tito said.
Light Years
Ahead Of His Class |
Earth’s first traveler
grew up in Forest Hills – the son of a printer father and seamstress mother —
and attended Forest Hills High School.
"I remember Tito, He lived across the
street from my house," said Karen Barasch Wixon, a graduate of Forest Hills
High’s class of 1958 who now resides in Houston, Texas.
Space tourist Dennis Tito as he appeared in the 1958 Forest
Hills High School yearbook. |
"As a teenager I thought of him
as someone different from the rest of us because I thought he was far more spiritually
advanced," Wixon told the Tribune.
"[Tito] had far more adventure and
bigger dreams and ideas than the rest of us. He was someone that danced to the tune of a
different drummer. So I can see that is not always a bad thing. He was also very avant
garde for his young years. I found him to be a far-out attractive young man, probably with
unlimited potential."
Judith Sager, a 1958 Forest Hills high grad
who now lives in Hollywood, Florida said, "I had no idea Dennis Tito graduated Forest
Hills High School with me in 1958. I ran to the yearbook and there he was.
"I really didn’t know him but he
sure has done well for himself. I do wish he had not gone with the Russians," Sager
said.
Another well-known classmate, City
Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who graduated from Forest Hills High School the same year Tito
did, said that he could not remember the enigmatic space traveler.
After high school, Tito went
on to study aeronautics at New York University before taking on a job with the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration as an aerospace engineer at the NASA Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Bayside native Ellen Shulman Baker blasted off aboard the
shuttle Atlantis in 1989.
Photo Courtesy of NASA
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With NASA, Tito worked on plans for
the Mariner spacecraft missions that traveled to Mars and Venus.
Tito began his quest for millions almost 30
years before his first space flight with his California investment company, Wilshire
Associates — a group that now provides managing advice for close to $1 trillion in
assets.
"The way I see it, the guy grew up in
Queens and he wasn’t well off, he went to school and worked for NASA and went off to
make a lot of money," said Tito’s 23-year-old son Brad in a recent article in
the New York Times.
Tito currently maintains a residence in
Pacific Palisades, California.
Tito’s flight has
attracted the attention of millions worldwide but has also created some bad blood between
Russia and the U.S. over the use of the International Space Station as a vacation
destination.
NASA denounced Tito’s weeklong space
vacation and called the trip improper and possibly unsafe.
Before taking the trip Tito had to agree
that he would not enter the U.S. section of the jointly owned space station without an
escort. He also had to promise that if he broke anything on board the orbiter he would
have to pay for it.
NASA is leader of the international space
station effort and laid the framework for the actual orbiting space structure.
Today 16 countries are members of the
International Space Station Team — the United States, Russia, Japan, Canada, Italy,
Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland,
the United Kingdom and Brazil.
From The
Borough Into The Great Beyond |
Dennis Tito is not the first
Queensite to orbit the earth.
In 1989, Ellen Shulman Baker, daughter of
Queens Borough President Claire Shulman left the earth’s atmosphere aboard the Space
Shuttle Atlantis.
These titled rockets that were once part of the U.S. Space
Park, are slated for renovation later this year.
PRESS Photo by Ira Cohen |
Baker, who attended Bayside High
School before becoming an astronaut, gained distinction for successfully deploying the
Galileo spacecraft on its journey to explore Jupiter.
Baker was also on board the shuttle
Columbia in June of 1992 when it embarked on what was at the time, the longest space
shuttle mission to date.
Baker was among the crew that spent nearly
two weeks in space to study the long-term effects on humans in space.
In 1995, Baker took part in her third
shuttle mission.
On board the Atlantis, Baker was part of
the team that was the first to dock with the Russian Space Station MIR.
"Looking down on that green-blue
planet was the greatest experience," Baker said about her time spent in space.
But Baker is not a lone Queens space
shuttle veteran.
Astronaut James Wetherbee, who was born in
Flushing in 1957, has taken part in five space shuttle missions since 1990.
Not everyone in Queens can
make the trip into space but some familiar pieces of our borough have already been there.
Among the items Baker took aboard her 1989
shuttle mission were a Queens flag, hundreds of messages from visitors to the New York
Hall of Science and a CD-ROM containing an issue of the Queens Tribune.
In 1977, the Voyager probe was fitted with
a copper plated record containing the son "Melancholy Blues," performed by
Corona’s own ambassador of goodwill, Louis Armstrong.
And the EDO plant, which was located in
College Point, was once a manufacturer of parts of the lunar landing module.
Monuments
To Space Travel |
Standing in a semi-upright
position next to the New York Hall of Science are monuments to the early days of
man’s flight into space – a time when a space vacation like Dennis Tito’s
was merely the stuff of science fiction.
Originally erected as part of the 1964
World’s Fair, the U.S. Space Park exhibit at the Fair was site where a rookie
astronaut named Neil Armstrong signed autographs for kids who had no idea what he would
accomplish in years soon to come.
On display was a Titan Rocket with a Gemini
capsule and an Atlas Rocket with a Mercury capsule — both still stand in Flushing
Meadows-Corona Park.
The rockets were donated by NASA and the
U.S. Department of Defense to the Hall of Science when the Fair ended.
The rocket park, which has been closed
since 1984, could re-open soon following a restoration project planned for this summer to
the tune of $1 million.
The rocket restoration is part of a major
expansion at the Hall of Science and is being made possible through funding from Borough
President Claire Shulman and Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s office.
Also in Flushing Meadows – Corona
Park, the Unisphere – constructed as the centerpiece of the 1964-65 World’s Fair
– was built as a monument to the space age.
The hollow globe was dedicated to
man’s achievements in on a shrinking planet in an expanding universe.
The enormous stainless steel globe is
encircled by three intertwining rings that pay tribute to the first Russian manned space
flight, the first communications satellite – Telstar – and the orbit of the
first manned American space flight.
