The Turks and Caicos Islands will celebrate the its unique place in the history of space exploration next week, 19-22 Mar 2012 in the Grand Turk.
The 50th Anniversary of the US Mercury Space Programme’s splashdown by John Glenn in the waters off of Grand Turk will be commemorated by several public events next week. This splashdown saw the successful conclusion of the United States’ first successful orbit of the earth on Feb, 20 1962.
- This will begin on Mon, 19 Mar when a set of newly commissioned murals depicting the past, present and future of space exploration will be unveiled at Grand Turk Cruise Centre. In the evening a range of guests including Janet Petro the deputy director of the John F. Kennedy Space Centre and retired National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) former Mercury Programme radar technician Alan Rakofsky will join officials from Carnival, TCI Government and the Tourist Board at a reception in the Governor’s Official Residence at Waterloo Grand Turk.
- Tue, 20 Mar will see the renaming of the approach road to the JAGS McCartney International Airport as John Glenn Drive, again attended by Janet Petro and Alan Rakofsky.
- The John Glenn Arts and Science Festival will take place in the Victoria Public Library, in Front Street, Grand Turk, which will see the Grand Turk campus of the TCI Community College take on their peers from Providenciales at 6.00pm.
- Finally, the week’s celebrations will be brought to a climax with a fireworks display and party on Governor’s Beach at 7.30pm on Fri, 22 Mar.
“It is still very exciting to hear of the huge leap into the unknown taken by NASA and John Glenn,” said His Excellency Governor Ric Todd. “To have been launched from Florida, make three orbits of the earth and to make the return to earth when the technical team at NASA thought that he was about to burn up in the atmosphere is an astonishing story of bravery.
“I am delighted that the people of Grand Turk are able to share in Carnival’s celebration of this milestone, and that there is a permanent memorial to John Glenn’s bravery both at the Cruise Centre and by renaming the approach road to the airport. It is surely only appropriate that this commemoration of a US hero sits alongside our tribute to our very own local hero James Alexander George Smith McCartney at Grand Turk International Airport.”
Further biographical information about John Glenn, the Mercury missions, the spacecraft plus pictures, videos and interactive features are available at: http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/glenn50/
