Unrelated story, but in the nineties I worked as a line service tech at the local FBO. Gene Cernan regularly flew his C-421 from Houston to his weekend retreat in the hill country. I got to know him fairly well and eventually got to where I was taking care of his 1980s yellow suburban. I got to be "his guy" and was allowed to drive his truck, fill it with gas and wash it for him. As a 17 year old kid, this was the highest honor imaginable.
I went off to college the next year, but I won't soon forget how well he treated me and his willingness to share all kinds of pilot and astronaut stories with me that were basically in his "private collection" of stories.
He died not long ago, and I wish I could have attended his funeral. What a man.
On another camera-related story, years ago I remember an article about some kind of very special pink-tinted (?) camera lenses that NASA (or Hasselblad?) accidentally shipped to some regular customer instead of its intended destination.
I think the guy kept them, refused to be paid off to ship them back or something, but that's about all I remember.
Omega better buy this guy a very fancy drink. Thanks to him, their their camera just skyrocketed in value and illustriousness. I think the last used-on-the-moon camera auctioned for $1mil.
